New Beginnings
by HeartsandEyesDelight
Summary: This is my non-serious, much-requested sequel to Leave of Absense. Fluffy. It isn't M yet, but it will be, because smut is an important part of fluff! Still AU, but without the dark-ness of creepy Grissom. Because creepy is not an important part of fluff.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

A/N: So this is the 'sequel' to Leave of Absence. Although, it's really not meant to be a serious sequel as much as a fluffy journey into the beginnings of their happily ever after. :)

I have no idea how long it'll be... depends how long my inspiration lasts.

Let me know what you think!

* * *

I was nervous. Was it normal to be nervous? I mean, god, I'd already slept with the man about a million times. He took my virginity for god's sakes. But I was. I was practically shaking, and I had changed clothes about ten times. Because, unlike Sara-the-seventeen-year-old, I had a lot of hot date dresses. But I wanted to make an impression. …A better impression than practically mowing him down in a court suit and then dragging him to lunch where I twisted his arm into asking me out.

Okay, maybe it wasn't that extreme. But I had… convinced him. Assuaged his conscience.

I had decided that my dress was a good choice it was a strapless a-line in dark blue that hugged my curves. It was tight enough to make me look like I had more of a chest than I did and yet far enough down my thighs to not feel like I was in danger of being arrested for public indecency. This was a line a few of my friends pushed, every so often.

I even wore heels. And that, in itself, is a testament to how much this man that I believed I had gotten out of my system years ago still meant to me. I only wore heels to court—the kids I worked for, I was willing to damage my nerves and joints and endure horrible back pain… but not for any man, nor any night out with friends. For Grissom, I broke out a strappy pair of kitten heels that were several years old but, thanks to my aversion to them, still looked like new.

We'd finished our lunch, I'd given him my address and directions to it, and he'd agreed to pick me up at seven. I'd dropped him back on the street where we'd collided. realizing he'd never told me why he was there in the first place and I'd driven away. Everything had been ordered, natural… of course we would finish eating, of course we would exchange information, of course I would drop him off.

Now, however, I was hardly controlling my panic. I walked around my apartment—painted a medium blue, with white and brown furniture and curtains—straightening things that were already straight and dusting things that hadn't seen dust in years. I realized with some amount of alarm that I was so nervous that I was sweating, and I ran to the bathroom to reapply deodorant and give myself the hundredth once over of the night.

No longer pasty white from living in Boston, I appreciated the light tan I'd managed to acquire and maintain. It made my hair look darker, my dress look brighter, my eyes look deeper. There was a knock on my door and I nearly jumped out of my skin, but it was with a sense of relief that I moved to the door. At least I wouldn't have to wait anxiously anymore.

I opened the door slowly, and there was a moment in which we both simply gazed at one another. His eyes moved over my face and he drew in a breath, as if he couldn't believe that we were really here, again, after all these years. I recognized the expression, because I felt that way too.

The years had only been kind to him. He was pushing forty, but he didn't look it. His hair was still brown, although there was the slightest hint of gray at his temples—so small that someone less meticulous than me would probably not have picked up on it. I wondered if his curls were as soft as I remembered—his eyes were certainly as blue. He wore a soft smile and a black button down that only made his eyes brighter. He had put on a little weight in the six years we'd been apart, but not so much that he could even be called overweight. His stomach was fuller, but still flat with his chest.

The gray slacks he wore were nice—he'd obviously put effort into dressing for the date—and I was certain I caught a whiff of cologne as the door swung open. He never used to wear cologne. The most surprising, perhaps, was the flowers he brought. Not that he brought them—years ago, hadn't he told me that if he was worried about a date going well he wouldn't arrive empty handed? No, I was surprised because they were not roses, flowers I had always associated with him. Instead, it was a bouquet of pink azaleas and white daffodils.

I smiled. "Hi."

He seemed to come out of his reverie at my words. When he responded, his voice came breathy.

"Hi."

I took a step back, opening the door wider to let him in, and he stepped in after only a moment's hesitation, smiling nervously. "I, uh… brought you flowers."

I smirked. Clearly. "Thank you… let me get a vase and some water for them before we go." I closed the door behind him and took the bouquet he offered me, moving into the kitchen. It was small, but functional, and updated. I was proud of my home. He stood in the archway that separated the kitchen from the living room, watching as I pulled down a large glass vase, filling it with water and setting the bouquet into it. "…These are unusual. I would have expected roses."

To my surprise, the man actually blushed, remembering—I assume—our night in the hotel… my first time. I smiled, remembering a time when I had blushed almost constantly around him. He cleared his throat.

"I, uh… I wanted… something meaningful." At my raised eyebrow, he smiled, stepping into the kitchen. When he began speaking, I recognized his tone of voice with a pang of nostalgia. It was his teacher voice. I used to tease him about it, in bed, until he started using it in bed… something I had certainly enjoyed more than I cared to admit.

I felt my face heating at the memory—not a blush, but certainly just as telling—and I cleared my throat too. "Meaningful?"

Ah, and there's the reason for his teacher voice: "Well… yeah. The, uh… Daffodils mean, among other things, …new beginnings."

I smirked. "And the azaleas?"

He looked a little uncomfortable. "Well, they… represent love and romance but… especially first loves. And… fragile passion. Temperance."

I smiled again, feeling a swelling feeling in my chest. "…That's nice."

We were silent for a moment, and he cleared his throat again. "Are you… ready to go or… I can wait if… if you're not."

I linked my arm easily through his, turning off lights as I guided him towards the front door. "Nope. I'm ready."

I picked up a black clutch by the door and pulled my keys from the table along the entryway wall. "You, uh… this is a very nice place."

"Thanks." I smiled again. "I think I got a pretty good deal on it… my mortgage payments are lower than I expected. I mean, some things were outdated but I've slowly but surely been remodeling…"

"You own it?" He asked in surprise and I laughed.

"I do."

"Aren't you… you're… twenty-four, Sara."

I closed the door behind us and locked it. "I started at Harvard at sixteen. I wasn't about to keep renting when I could afford to buy. So, what're we doing tonight?"

"Well, there's this great seafood place…"

I looked up at him in surprise to discover he was teasing. He had on a silly grin and a glint in his eyes. I chuckled. "If I break out in hives, there's no second date…"

He took me to an Italian Restaurant, asking if it was still a favorite, seeming nervous still. I laid a hand on his arm, trying to reassure. "It is still a favorite. And… you don't need to be nervous, Grissom. Let's… let's look at this like a fresh start. I mean… we obviously can't ignore our history but… I forgave you for everything a long time ago."

He smiled and nodded and looked down at his menu… and then glanced back up at me. "Gil."

I glanced up from my menu as well. "I'm sorry?"

He took a deep breath. "Call me Gil. Please."

I smiled, and took a sip of the wine he'd ordered for the pair of us, and he smirked. "This is the first time I've seen you drink legally."

I smirked too. "So… you're still in Vegas… supervisor of the Crime Lab. From what I've heard, you're single-handedly responsible for it becoming the number two lab in the country…"

He gave a modest sort of smile accompanied by a wave of his hand. "No, I… I have a great team… they're the reason we've been doing so well…"

I watched his eyes light up as he spoke about them—he was happier in Vegas than he used to be. His eyes used to get dark when he talked about the place. It made me happy to know that it no longer haunted him. "Tell me about them…"

His descriptions of his colleagues carried us through ordering, an appetizer, and the arrival of dinner. I couldn't remember the last time I'd laughed so hard—I'd heard about Catherine, of course, but there were two new CSIs on his shift and a DNA technician whom he claimed to find irritating to no end. I say 'claim' because he smiled when he described the young man's antics and his tendency to wear any evidence that could be classified as women's clothing.

The two CSIs seemed very young, though they were my age. They'd just been hired—which proved that they had not been responsible for the Crime Lab's rise in ratings—Nick was a Texan with a heart as big as his homeland. Gil confessed to worrying that he identified too readily with the victims but also to his great pride at the man's successes. Warrick was a Las Vegas native who had been raised in near poverty by his grandmother and emerged a brilliant criminalist who could play classical piano with the best of them. He seemed to need less guidance and approval, but also seemed more susceptible to his own demons.

He spoke of the men with absolute love and pride, and I found myself longing to know the people who seemed like they'd become his make shift family after we'd parted ways. I was about to ask about his mother, and Hank, but he beat me to it. The waiter set our plates before us, and as I picked up a fork, he took the opportunity.

"I've been doing all the talking. I really want to hear about you."

I smiled, swallowing the bite I'd already popped into my mouth. It was rather amazing—artichokes and ravioli in a gorgonzola sauce. All cream and cheese and fat.

"Well… you know that I'm a forensic social worker. I've been doing that for… four years. Three of which have been in San Francisco. …You obviously saw my condo. I volunteer as a mentor for young girls in foster care on the weekends. My girlfriends insist on Margarita Mondays to keep in touch, and I have breakfast with my mother every Friday—she works the night shift, but Thursdays are her nights off, so she's free to eat with me before I have to get in to work…"

I shrugged. "That's about it, I guess. Work, friends, family."

"Dates?" He asked me, eliciting a grin from me.

"Occasionally, yes. Nothing serious."

He nodded. "…Tell me about your mother."

I cleared my throat. "Well, you… you knew that she was… in prison. After she… killed my father, she went to… a mental institution. She kind of… had a break with reality, briefly. It took about six months and she was deemed to be in her right mind. I think she would have gotten off on self-defense, even though he'd been hurting my brother at the time, not her, because there was a history of suspicious hospital visits, but…

I sighed.

"She… had been kind of a heavy drinker. The state said that it contributed to her actions, and that if she'd been sober, she would have called the police rather than taking matters into her own hands." I frowned, disliking the sentence to this day. "They sent her to a jail that dealt specifically with addiction… she got out while I was at Harvard and I… ignored her letters, for a long time, but… eventually I wrote her back and… we cleared up a lot of things. I moved to San Francisco to be close to her… get to know her, again."

"Have you… seen your brother?"

I frowned, glancing down at my meal. "He's… not doing so well."

There was a brief silence as we both took some time away from talking to eat, uncertain with where the conversation had steered us. Eventually, I pushed past it.

"Do you still have Hank?"

He laughed. " I do… I warn you, though, he's gotten rather fat. It's the guys…"

"At the lab?"

He chuckled. "Yeah… he's kind of become the mascot for the Crime Lab. He's a service animal now—nothing cool like a Seeing Eye dog, but he offers… comfort, to victims. So he spends all day in my office, until there's a case when he's needed. …Which means that he gets a treat every time someone passes by."

I giggled, finishing off my meal. "Aww… I miss Hank!"

He smiled, softly. "He missed you too… he was miserable for… over a year, after."

The waiter arrived, saving us from the discomfort again. He asked if we'd like dessert, and though I made it a rule to have dessert on dates—I wasn't interested in a man who couldn't feed my sweet tooth—I was rather full. He left the check and Gil slipped a card in, passing it back immediately. I glanced at the watch on his wrist—it was still early. I wondered what else he had planned for the night...


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: No snow day today, but the responses was so immediate and overwhelming that it inspired me to hurry up and post again.

To my lovely readers and reviewers: Enjoy! :)

* * *

He rose out of his chair, pulling mine out for me as I stood, and his hand found the small of my back. It was the first time he had overtly touched me since picking me up and my whole body reacted to it—goose bumps down my arms, butterflies in my stomach, a warm, swooping feeling through my chest. I leaned closer, without even thinking about it, and he slid his arm around my waist to hold me close to him. He was warm, and solid, and distinctly masculine. I breathed in the scent of his cologne deeply, letting it fill me up.

He guided me out of the restaurant and when I shivered as the cool air of the evening hit me, he moved his arm my shoulders instead, instantly filling me with warmth.

"I… I was going to suggest a walk on the beach… but if you're cold…"

"No!" I said immediately, wanting very much to walk on the beach with him. "It was just the contrast from the restaurant… I'm getting used to it."

He looked down at me skeptically, and then smiled softly, pulling me over to his rental car, unlocking it, and pulling out a gray suit jacket from the back seat. He'd obviously intended to wear it tonight and changed his mind at the last minute… which made me smile, considering how many times I'd changed clothes. He wrapped it over my shoulders and took my hand instead, giving it a gentle squeeze when I smiled at him.

"Better?"

I hunched my shoulders to bring the collar of the jacket closer to my face, breathing in the scent of him in the fabric. "Much…"

He grinned. "Good." He tugged my hand gently and guided me down past the cement and the tourists to the beach and the paused, guiding me to sit on the steps which had led us down here. I narrowed my eyes in the question, but he didn't answer… he simply crouched before me, taking my legs on at a time and sliding his palm from the underside of my knees down to my ankles to slip off the heels I would have been stumbling in if I'd tried to walk across the sand.

I tried to restrain myself—hold back my reactions—because it was a first date with a man whom I had told needed to earn my trust back, and if I'd let myself go, my eyes would have been rolling back in my head. His fingers were smooth, his palm soft, the pad on his thumb just slightly calloused, and they made the gesture all the more intimate as they slid over my calves with a reverence I knew and yet did not.

I was breathless when he offered me a hand and helped to me stand again. He kept my hand pressed against his, reminding me constantly of his caress, and led me down to the water's edge. There was a bonfire and some rather loud teenagers sitting around it to the left, so he took me to the right, squeezing my hand again.

"I, uh… I know you said that… that we should just start fresh but… Sara, I… I want you to know how sorry I am and… how… grateful I am that… that you would give me a second chance."

I smiled, but I could feel it on my face and I knew it betrayed some amount of sadness too. I squeezed his hand. "I know, Gil… I do. I… I think that… you leaving… Once I realized the way our relationship had been, I… I knew you'd only done it because…" I hesitate—it's been six years and the words don't feel fluid anymore. They stick in my throat.

He finishes my sentence for me. "Because I loved you."

I draw in a deep breath, letting my eyes close for just a moment. Because I'm not ready to hear him tell me that he loves me, and I'm eternally grateful that he'd used the past tense, and desperately seeking a subject change now. It was just… too soon. I nodded, slowly, and let my face and body indicate that I was thinking… transitioning into a new conversation.

"How long are you in town for?"

I felt like maybe this should have been a more pressing question, but it hadn't been. We'd come together again after six years with the realization that very little had changed in our feelings for each other—if time couldn't pose a significant barrier, distance seemed trivial. Still, it was worth asking.

He inhaled at my question, giving himself a minute. "It was supposed to be a week but, well, I've already been here four days. But, ah… I was thinking about using some of the vacation time I've stored up. …If… if that's not too presumptuous?"

I smiled and leaned into him again, prompting him to move his arm back around my waist. "It's a little presumptuous, but… I would really like to… spend some time with you… see where this goes." He gave me a surprised smile and our walk slowed, our eyes meeting. I breathed in deeply, uncertain if I logically wanted to kiss him yet. Physically, emotionally, I was longing for it… but logically, I hesitated.

He'd always been able to read me like a book and the years had not changed this, apparently… He watched me, even moving in unconsciously, but he caught the look in my eye and gave me a turned up corner of his mouth, pressing his lips to my forehead instead. "I'd really… really like to see where it goes too." He whispered against my hairline, drawing me against his chest in a hug.

I wrapped my arms around his waist to keep the jacket from sliding from my shoulders and pulled him close to me, breathing in against his shoulder. If I was honest with myself, I hadn't really ever gotten over him. I mean, sure, I'd moved on, matured, stopped thinking about him… but to say that my heart forgot him would be a lie. I had described the first time we made love as having been lacking something that I never knew I was missing, but when we were together, I realized that I had never been whole before. Being pressed against his chest evoked a similar emotion. I hadn't known—but I was whole again.

But I was afraid, too. If I tried to say I wasn't, it would be a lie. It had taken me… days to function again. Force myself to go to class, turn in homework, feed myself… It had been weeks before I stopped crying myself to sleep, months before I felt like I was alive again… over a year before I went a day without thinking about him as soon as I woke up and right before I fell asleep. At least two before I could go more than a day without thinking about him at all. And there was always the pain… the hole that was not one I'd been unaware of my whole life, but a new hole, jagged around the edges—absolute emptiness. It made it hurt to breathe, hurt to move.

I had been fine. I had lived through worse than losing Gil Grissom… but to say I was willing to do it again was… dangerous. Certainly, I was willing to take the chance again, if only because the pain had dulled so much in six years… the man was my soul mate, after all. I knew this. …But I also knew that fairy tales weren't real. Just because you had found your one-and-only didn't mean you'd have a happily ever after. So I was cautious, because I was frightened. I had seen the kind of pain losing him could inspire, and I didn't wish to see it again.

He pulled back from me with a deep sigh. "…Maybe I'll have to move to a hotel that allows dogs and have Catherine fly Hank up here…"

I felt my worrisome thoughts melt away to be replaced by a warm smile. I had really missed Hank. "…Would you really do that?"

He grinned at my excitement, leading us further down the beach. "Of course. …Especially if I'm going to be here a while. Catherine really only said she'd take him for a week… and that was because I asked her in front of Lindsey." He gave me a mischievous wink and I giggled, feeling impulsive.

"Take your shoes off!" He raised an eyebrow, but couldn't restrain the smile. He bent over, untying his black dress shoes and slipping out of them and then pulling off his socks, one at a time, to shake sand out of them and tuck them into his shoes. With a smile I dropped to my knees in the sand, carefully rolling up his pant legs to his knees. He looked startled at first, but smiled when he realized what I was doing.

I let my fingernails trace up his calves, hoping it teased him as much as it had me, and when I felt his hands fall into my hair—reminding me inescapably of another time I'd been on my knees before this man with his hands in my hair—I knew that it had. I gasped softly as the memory overtook me and felt the heat rising in my face again. As an eighteen year old, I had never seen a penis outside of an anatomy book and the porn he'd made me watch while eating pizza. SoI had had nothing against which to compare Gil when we became intimate.

This, however, was no longer the case. I had had boyfriends, relationships… I was a little more… educated. And that education provided me with the knowledge that I had been missing out, in the last six years. Though even when he'd been controlling he would have been too modest to say so, Gil was an impressive man, not only in skill, but on a purely physical level. No one had ever filled me up like he had…

I had wondered, years ago, if he hadn't ruined sex for me, starting me out with the expectation that every man would have such natural gifts. …Although, in truth, I'd always been glad he was my first. Even when I was hurting, I had been glad.

I rose slowly to my feet, certain my cheeks were red with the heat of my memory, and his looked a little red as well. He licked his lips, softly, and I had to swallow back the moan that rose in my throat. I slid the suit jacket from my shoulders, laying it on top of both of our shoes, and slid my hand into his, intertwining our fingers and tugging him towards the surf. He chuckled.

"You and that ocean…" He scolded teasingly, realizing my intention. "The only thing you used to love more than me."

There's that L-word again. I smile because his voice tells me he's teasing, even though his eyes tell me he likes saying it, even if it's hidden in the safety of past-tense. My impulse is to tease back… shrug it off… but I like it too, even if I'm not ready for it. "I didn't love anything more than you."

Still secure in past tense, but… His breath catches in his throat and his hand tightens on mine. His bright blue eyes catch mine and I feel heat in my face again. Our toes hit the chilly water, however, cooling the moment… putting it on hold, and when I sigh I don't know whether it's in disappointment or relief. We stay on the edge, so that when the waves roll in they hit us mid-calf, but when they roll out our toes are squishing in newly exposed sand.

He brings me around to hug him again, laying a kiss in my hair above my ear. "…I never thought I'd see you again. When I saw you… when I realized it was you, Sara… it felt like something out of a fairy tale."

I feel my body melt into his words, fluid against his strong frame, my arms winding tightly around him. I wouldn't admit it… not really… but it had felt that way for me too. A modern fairy tale, where the princess buys the prince a sub and asks him why he wouldn't ask her out just because they had once been lovers while he was her teacher…

There's a loud BANG! that makes me jump in his arms, and laughing we both turn back to look at the shore line and the row of restaurants just off the beach and up the wooden stairs. A teenager in an apron has slammed open the back door to what must be a bar rather than a restaurant, probably to let in a cool breeze from the ocean. The music from within floats out serendipitously, and though it's almost too faint to hear, it's enough to inspire the entomologist in my arms to step back, move a hand to my waist, and hold my other one out, the way I used to think only old people danced.

I smile as he attempts to move us in the waves and the sticky sand and laugh when I end up stepping on his feet, trying to maneuver without splashing his nice pants. He frowns a little—his eyes still laughing at my laughter, but disappointed that such a romantic gesture had obviously failed. I smothered my giggles and stepped closer to him, trying to free my hand to wrap both arms around his neck. He keeps it though, pressing both our hands to his chest between us, but keeping me close still.

He doesn't try to turn us anymore, but we sway slowly, and eventually I lay my head on his shoulder, wondering at the level of comfort I find with him. Certainly, I had known him very well, once upon a time… I had trusted him more than anyone. …But to still have that comfort, after knowing he'd betrayed me… it seemed foolish, yet I couldn't bring myself to lift my head.

It was like something out of a dream and being in his arms felt like home.

The next song was not another slow one, but fast and loud… and without discussion we moved back as one to our shoes and his jacket, each carrying the pair in our outside hands and holding the others' inside hands. When we reached the steps again, he sat me down, brushing the dry sand that had stuck to my wet feet away, and replacing my shoes so I wouldn't have to walk barefoot on cement. He left his off, and I found myself sneaking glances at his toes.

I had never appreciated them, back when I had been able to see them each and every day if I wanted. They were really rather endearing, as far as toes go.

By the time we made it back to his car, it was after ten o'clock, and though it wasn't so late that the date had to end, it was later than really made sense to start a new activity. He brushed off his own feet and replaced his shoes before driving me home, and he walked me to my door, hand on the small of my back again, smiles on both of our faces.

I leaned back against my door, not unlocking it yet. "…Did you… want to come in for coffee?"

His lips twitched—halfway between a smile and an uncertainty. "…Maybe I'd better not…" He blushed a little, and when I raised an eyebrow, he blushed more, coughing a little. "Temperance," he reminded himself as much as me, and for the briefest moment I cursed the azaleas and their prudish secret meanings. …But he was probably right.

No, he was definitely right. I nodded, smiling, and turned and unlocked my door before turning back to him. "Well I… I really had a nice time, Gil. …I'm glad we did this."

He smiled too, tucking a stray curl behind my ear and leaning in to plant the softest of kisses on my cheek. I felt a delicious, warm tingling seep through my body at the contact, and when he pulled away I'm certain my eyelashes were still fluttering. His smile turned into a grin. "I'm really glad too. …Can I call you tomorrow?"

I nodded. "I'd really like that." He took my hand, lifting it to his lips and kissing it as well.

"Until tomorrow, then. …Sweet Dreams, Sara."

"Goodnight…"

I moved into my home, closing my door slowly behind myself as he slowly walked away, before letting myself fall lightly against the door and quietly squeal under my breath.

...What a perfect, perfect night!


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Sorry it took so long for an update. I struggled with Grissom's mind set, because I was so stuck on this Grissom being--as he has so lovingly come to be called--Captain Orgasm. He kept coming out... icky... but I think this is better. Updates should be more regular now. :)

Enjoy! Thanks for the reviews!

* * *

I had a hard time sleeping when I got home… I couldn't stop thinking about Sara. She had only grown more beautiful with time. She was really a woman completely confident in who she was and what she thought… and I found it even more attractive. I liked that she didn't blush as often… that she spoke with conviction… that her eyes didn't seek my approval anymore. I don't know why I liked it, as six years ago I had wanted the opposite in every way… but then, we were both different, now.

I called Catherine, even though I knew she'd be working, and I got lucky—it was a slow night and, as she was covering for me, she'd opted to stay back, work on paperwork, and wait for another case to come in. I let her believe that I was calling to check in—let her talk through the cases and the evidence and offered suggestions that she didn't need—because I was too keyed up to go to sleep, yet I didn't want to have a conversation full of questions either.

When she had exhausted her stories—including a rather humorous one in which day shift got a case taken over by night shift because they'd missed a vital piece of evidence from the original processing of the scene and it happened to be a fairly high profile case. It was just icing on the cake that Ecklie had been the lead on the case. I took joy in it, adding it to the elation of the evening… and then I broke the news.

"Catherine… I, uh… I was wondering if you could fill out a form for me, since I'm not there presently. You've pretty much mastered forging my signature at this point, haven't you?"

She laughed—"My G's are too curvy… What did you have in mind?"

The sliding of a drawer told me she'd already opened the file cabinet, anticipating whichever form I might request.

"A request for… vacation time."

I could almost see the raised eyebrow and the accompanying hair toss as she switched the phone from one ear to the other. "Vacation time? Gil—you're on vacation."

I smiled. "I know, but… well, I've had something come up here… I'm going to stay for a few weeks, at least."

But Catherine was far too perceptive for her own good—and I'd told her too much about myself over the years. Not much, but still too much. She let out an amused sort of huff. "Is this about a woman?"

I chuckled, feeling giddy. "I'm afraid I can't answer that, Catherine. If it is and I say no and never come back, you'd never forgive the lie. If I say yes and it doesn't work out, I'd never live down the shame."

"And if it isn't?"

"I admit it and lose all of my mystery… I deny it, and I just sound like a boring old man who needs a vacation."

She actually laughed—I hadn't fooled her. "Tell whoever she is not to keep you too long—I'm already sick of paperwork."

I gave in, laughing. "I will. Listen… I gave you a key before I left, right?"

"Yes…" She said hesitantly, "but I told you I'm not feeding your spiders. You said they'd be fine with what you left them while you were gone but…"

I chuckled. "Ask one of the guys to do it. Actually—have Nick do it. Tell him I'll give him a solo case every other week if he manages to keep them all alive until I come back. But my spiders weren't the reason I asked. In my office desk drawer, way in the back, in a black box is a rosary… under the pad it's on, is a credit card. I want you to fly Hank to San Francisco."

"Exactly how long do you intend to be on 'vacation' for?"

I shrugged, "Put two weeks down on the form…"

"That doesn't answer my question, Gil. What you put on the form and what you intend are two different things…"

I smiled. "As long as it takes. Listen, as soon as you can get Hank on a flight, call and let me know… his carrier's in the garage. Thanks, Cath."

I could hear her scowling at me. "Fine. You want to be vague and mysterious, that's fine—but you will tell me about this eventually."

I sighed, knowing that was probably true. "Eventually. Good night, Catherine."

"Good night."

I hung up, and then paced my apartment, trying to wind down to sleep—I wanted to be wide awake to call her in the morning. I finally forced myself to go lie down, thinking about the depth of her smile—the sheer light of her eyes. I had screwed this up once already… I wasn't going to waste my second chance.

The morning dawned bright and early, and though I had a headache from lack of sleep, I was still too excited to roll over and give myself another hour. I showered, ate, took some Tylenol, and then stared at my phone, thinking.

It was a Friday today—she'd be having breakfast with her mother, and then going in to work. But, maybe since she'd just finished a case, she'd be relatively free. Or, at least able to spare a minute to plan an evening. Although, speaking of… I didn't know what I would be inviting her to do tonight. I went down to the front desk, inquiring over interesting things to do in town… and discovered that Berkeley was hosting an art show, displaying the art of their graduate students, teachers, and alumni. I would have cooked for her as well—I had missed that almost as much as anything else—but I'd just have to find another restaurant.

I glanced at the clock—if I had to guess, I'd say she'd either be finishing up breakfast or just arriving at the office. I could call now and I might be interrupting… but if I waited, wouldn't she most certainly be at work and be distracted by a client? Or… already have made plans.

I watched my phone, anxiously, and just as I was reaching for it, it rang. I jumped and then snatched it up, wondering if she was calling me instead. But no, it was Catherine. I sighed in disappointment and answered. "Grissom."

"Gil, good morning. Hank's on a plane."

I started in surprise, glancing at the clock. It was early. "Really? Already?"

"Well, I had some time last night, called the airport… they said they could get him out on a flight this morning. So I loaded him up after shift and put him on board. His plane lands at…" I heard a shuffling of papers. "Ten forty five. I turned in your vacation form and talked Nick into feeding your pets… So I think that should do it."

I smiled. "Thanks Cath. I'll talk to you later."

I hung up and called Sara, knowing exactly what to say now to justify calling so early and possibly interrupting her weekly breakfast with her mother or an appointment with a client. I couldn't help feeling a little nervous… a little scared, even, but it was a good thing. I hadn't felt nervous enough—worried enough about her rejection or her disapproval—the first time around.

"Hello?"

She sounded a little breathless. I drew in a deep breath. "Sara—Hi, it's… it's Gil. I, uh… I'm sorry to call so early, I just…"

"No worries. I just finished breakfast… you can talk to me while I drive."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, I… I'm calling to ask if I can take you out again tonight and, uh… I was wondering if… if you know, if you have time… today… if you wanted to come pick up Hank with me."

She gave an excited gasp. "Oh my baby! Of course—he'll be here today?!"

I chuckled at her excitement. "He will. Catherine must have been ready to have a dog-free house again. I'm picking him up at ten forty five, today… I know you might be working, but…"

"No, I'm not. I mean, I have some paperwork to fill out, but I usually leave Fridays free so I can come in late, leave early, catch up on my cases…"

"Great! ...Maybe, after we pick up Hank, I can take you to lunch then? I mean… if that's okay. If… if you don't have other plans or… don't have to get back to the office or—"

She laughed. "Gil. Lunch sounds great… maybe we could go to The Pier, let Hank run on the beach… eat outside. I'll see if I can finish up by then, maybe I can take the second half of the day off… I might be a little late though…"

I felt so light, so happy, so free. I was practically giggling I was so ecstatic. "That's fine. You take whatever time you need—I'm sure he'll be unloaded last and I'm sure I'll have to fill out a crazy amount of paperwork to get him… I'll call you, if you're not there, when we're leaving…"

She sighed happily. "Great. Oh, I'm so excited to see him! …Is he really so fat now?"

I laugh. "He is. You won't recognize him."

"…Do you think he'll recognize me?"

I smiled softly. "I don't know… you'd think so…"

"Alright, well, I'll let you go then… I've gotta hurry it up to work if I want to finish everything in time. I'll… see you soon."

"I can't wait." I said honestly, already feeling butterflies in my stomach.

"Me either… Bye Gil."

"Bye Sara."

She hung up, and I let the phone fall from my ear, holding it to my chest. It was more than just a relief that I wouldn't have to wait all day to see her… I felt anxious and wound up and all I wanted to do was feel her in my arms again. I packed up my things and made some phone calls, locating a pet-friendly hotel that was still nice and reserved a room for myself for the next two week and three days. It felt like so long compared to the three days I'd had the night before or the belief that I'd never see her again that I'd operated under long before that.

But at the same time, it also felt like a ticking clock. I mean, of course I had lots of time saved up, but… I had a feeling that we would know where this was going, by then. It was a deadline—in two weeks and three days, we would have to make a decision. A long distance relationship, another extended leave of absence, one of us quitting the job we'd worked so hard for to move in with the other? …Or the end. We'd tried again, it hadn't worked out, there was too much to lose to make it worth the attempt…

My stomach clenched at the thought. It may feel like forever, but the seconds to my forever were counting down. I had to make each and every moment count.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own.

A/N: Sorry for the long delay, and that it could be longer. ...I don't think I'm very good at writing stand-alone fluff. It's always so much harder to flush out than long stories with deep plots... :) So I'm sorry, if updates take a while. I'm trying.

* * *

I was speeding. I didn't like to speed, well… no. I loved to speed, but I didn't like how many tickets I'd gotten for doing so. So I had been trying not to speed, but I couldn't help it—Gil and Hank were waiting for me. I'd rushed through my fairly short and yet seemingly endless pile of paperwork and I was still running late. Even if Hank were the very last thing to be unloaded and they made Gil walk through twenty minutes worth of red tape, they were still going to be waiting on me. And I was right—I pulled up to the loading zone outside the airport to find Gil on the minimal patch of exposed grass with a rather large version of the puppy I remembered.

Gil must not have seen me—he had Hank on a leash and they were running. For fat dog who sat around all day, he didn't shy away from physical activity. Maybe I'd take him on one of my morning runs while Gil was in town… I put my car in park, disregarding the implication that Hank and I would be sleeping in the same place for that to be possible—because if Hank and I were sleeping in the same place, then Gil and I were sleeping in the same place.

Not that I didn't foresee that happening while Gil was in town—I did. In fact, I had all but foreseen it when I invited him in to coffee the night before. But I didn't want it to be implied. …He had to work for it.

I wolf-whistled and both man and dog stopped in their tracks, Gil slightly red from running and maybe from being caught, sweaty and running, on a small patch of airport grass. Hank, however, perked his ears up and turned to the sound—and the minute our eyes met, he was catapulting away from Gil, his leash yanked away and dragging on the ground behind him. I crouched down and wrapped him up in my arms, getting a face full of doggy slobber.

"Oh Hank! Who's Mommy's good boy? Who's her boy?" His tail was frantic as he nuzzled me, his face against my chest and his front paws pulling his now-massive frame into my lap, his large doggy tongue catching my chin, my shoulder, my ears as I laughed, scratching him all over. "Yes, you are! Aren't you Mommy's boy? Good boy, Hank! Good boy!"

Gil chuckled, finally catching up to the overweight animal, cheekbones still slightly pink. "He clearly remembers you…"

He had a wry, teasing smile on his face and I smirked, rolling my eyes. "Shut up. I can baby talk him if I want to, no matter how many treats you let them sneak him." Another lick up my cheek caught my eye and I backed away a little, laughing. "Okay, big boy… Momma's here. Calm down." I scratched his ears the way he'd liked as a puppy and he let out a doggy groan, settling his head against my chest to enjoy it. I looked up at Gil again, my eyes sparkling.

"…Thank you."

He smiled. "Why don't you and Hank follow me to my hotel? I can unload while you spend some more time with him, and then we can leave one car behind…"

I flashed him a smile and stood up, opening the passenger side door and telling Hank to get in. He did, sitting tall in the front seat, his big tongue dangling out of his panting mouth. I closed Hank in and he turned to look out the window at us as I wrapped my arms around Gil's waist, pulling him tightly to me and resting my head against his chest. "Thank you." I repeated, and his head tilted even as he wrapped his arms around me, holding me close.

"You already said that…"

I shook my head against him. "…Not just for Hank. For… trying so hard, to give us a second chance."

He sighed happily and kissed the top of my head, words unnecessary.

I climbed in my car and watched him walk out to a rental, parked in short term parking, a large dog carrier already in the back seat. I glanced over at Hank. "You ready, boy?"

He licked his lips and panted more, so I opened the window enough for him to stick his head out and drove slowly to the exit, waiting for Gil to pay for his parking and pull in front of us so he could lead the way to his new hotel. The dog friendly one, where he and Hank were staying, for me. All for me.

The drive wasn't long, and once Gil had reassured me that he wouldn't run away, I dug out a ball and took Hank off his leash, playing fetch outside the hotel while Gil brought his suitcase and Hank's large carrier into his new hotel room. I gave him some privacy to get settled, and when he emerged he had changed from jeans into a pair of khaki shorts and a t-shirt that said "Entomologists do it with bugs."

I grinned, and hooked Hank's leash back on his collar and easily leaned into him as he placed an arm around me. It was really too easy to slip back into the ease of trusting him implicitly… of wanting to always be closer. I drove us to the pier and Gil held my hand while Hank walked back and forth across my back seat, sticking his head out each window in turn. I wasn't really dressed for a day at the beach—I'd been dressed for the office. I was extremely thankful that I'd worn a loose-fitting skirt this morning, and that I only wore flats except in court. I would at least be moderately comfortable.

We held hands and Gil held on to Hank's leash as we walked up and down the pier—it was a tourist spot, but it was a sunny Friday, in summertime, and the kids and tourists were smiling. Overcrowded or not, it was a pleasant place to be. We stopped about half-way down at a little café with outdoor seating and ordered food. Gil ordered an extra bottle of water and pulled a paper cup he'd flattened from his pocket, reshaped it, and filled it up for Hank to drink at our feet. He was such a good Daddy. I hadn't even thought about Hank until we'd sat down and I realized how thirsty I was.

It was everything a cliché-filled afternoon in the sun in supposed to be—the food was good, but I hardly noticed, because the company kept me laughing and light-hearted. Gil bought us both ice cream cones and we walked back the way we'd come, licking them as leisurely as we walked, window-shopping the little tourist shops. Mostly they had lame t-shirts and other junk, although there were a few places I thought I might have to come back to—they had some interesting hand-made jewelry.

Gil had almost dragged both Hank and I inside when he noticed my interest, but I didn't want him buying it for me. I had to insist, time and again, that I didn't want anything.

We were almost to the car when a pretty golden retriever waltzed by us on a pink leash, tail in the air, and had Hank turning in a complete circle, tripping me up with his leash. I only stumbled a little, but I'd been bending down for another lick of my mint chocolate chip cone… and now my nose was cold. I glared at Hank and lifted a hand to wipe the ice cream away as Gil scolded the poor, love struck boxer, but he caught my hand before it reached my nose. I looked up at him and my breathing immediately increased when I realized how close he was standing to me. His eyes were fixed on the green blob on the tip of my nose and higher—and then, as if it were nothing in the world, he'd lowered his mouth, swiping first with his tongue and then both lips, sucking the ice cream away.

It was the strangest thing anyone had ever done, and yet it had my eyes fluttering and my knees feeling weak. His mouth had been so soft… warm and wet and gentle, and it had my heart racing. I struggled to meet his gaze, uncertain as to why my eyes seemed so heavily lidded all of a sudden, and when I finally did, his bright blue eyes were closing and, come to think of it, mine were closing too.

It was soft, this first kiss after so long apart. He didn't hesitate—it wasn't a brush and then a retreat, like he was uncertain. We both knew the fireworks that such contact could and would inspire, and so while his smooth, velvety lips pressed gently, they lingered, moving slowly over mine, enticing participation and reciprocation and supplication.

He pulled away before I could deepen the kiss, and I became aware that Hank was whimpering at our feet, no doubt wondering when the walk would resume. I looked into his eyes, smiling, hoping my flushed cheeks could be blamed on the sun, and knowing from the smile he returned to me that they could not. …I had to make him wait… work for it… earn it…

But that was going to be so much harder than I'd anticipated.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews! :) Let me know what you think.

* * *

I just couldn't get enough of her. One swipe of a tongue over the beautiful bridge of her nose and a heavy-lidded gaze turned into the softest, most memorable of kisses we'd ever shared… and it had my mind positively spinning. The sweetness of her lips mixing with the mint and chocolatey tastes on my tongue… the strength of her reaction to me, the soft puff of air from her nose to my cheek as she let herself slide in deeper, wanting more.

I pulled back then, but I felt guilty. The first time around, I had made her wait because I wanted things to happen on my terms… Was making her wait, even for purer motives, even remotely acceptable now? I just… I was scared shitless that I would lose her again. Truth be told, I'd been a mess after I left her there in Boston. My mother had worried and I'd brushed her off, sulking, in the room that hadn't changed since I was a teenager, like the teenager who had decorated it. When the rental agreement on my townhouse was up, I moved back home… started at the lab again.

Catherine didn't hesitate to mention how haggard I looked. …How much weight she thought I'd lost. How I didn't seem like I got any enjoyment out of solving cases anymore. How I didn't smile, or eat enough… That was probably the real reason Hank got so fat. Catherine spent so much time in my office, trying to convince me to talk or… do anything other than the bare minimums. A hundred times, I wanted to call her—beg for her forgiveness and beg for her to take me back.

But I was afraid. I was afraid that she wouldn't forgive me, and I was afraid that she would—because if she could forgive me and accept me back in less than a year, she either didn't truly understand what I'd done, or I still had a hold on her. And I knew myself—if she told me that yes, I could come back to her… I wouldn't say no, even if I should have known better. So I didn't call, and time passed in a blur. The seasons in Vegas were indistinct—winter was colder, summer was hotter… but there was no visible changing of the seasons.

I did cases, I filled out paperwork, I visited my mother on the necessary holidays… and over time, I came to enjoy cases again. I went out to breakfast… I hired a few young CSIs who were brilliant. I was finally functioning again—not drowning daily in grief. …That might have been half a year before I ran into her again.

So as you can see, I had a reason to be afraid that I would screw up. The last time I lost her had absolutely destroyed me.

But if I didn't hold myself back… hold us back… we might rush into all of this too quickly. It might scare her… having her thinking we'd rushed into this, maybe she wasn't ready, maybe her hot date from the week before we ran into each other was so much easier to deal with. Less baggage, less thinking… less me. So I held back, despite feeling like I had no right to deny her anything she wanted.

…One thing I did know—I would never admonish Hank for checking out a woman ever again.

By the time we left the pier, it was mid-afternoon… we'd gone down to the beach, splashed in the surf… let Hank run up and down the beach and catapult himself into the waves. …He'd never been in the ocean before—just Lake Mead. He learned very quickly that he didn't like it nearly as much as his mommy did. He would run out to chest high, and then a wave would roll in and he'd get salty water in his nose, eyes, and mouth. He was sitting on the beach, ready to be done, far sooner than we were… but eventually his whimpering and the pink tinge on her nose—not to mention the stinging on my ears that told me they were far redder.

We walked back to the car and I purchased a few beach towels from a tourist shop so that Hank, wet and sandy, didn't completely ruin Sara's backseat. We piled in and without even asking, Sara drove us back to her condo. When I raised my eyebrow in the question, she just smiled, asking if I thought I could carry Hank. I glanced at the boxer. "Yeah… I can carry him. Why?"

She grinned, getting out of the car. "Because he's dirty."

Well. Of course. All dirty dogs needed to be carried. Why didn't I think of that? I got out behind her as she opened the door to the backseat. "…So, where am I carrying him to?"

She clipped his leash back on his collar and encouraged him to jump out of the car. "To the bathtub, of course."

I raised my eyebrows. …She wanted us to give Hank a bath? She pulled all the towels from the back seat and shook the sand out of them, folded them, and tucked them under her arm, leading both Hank and I up to her front door, where she proceeded to pause and look at me, waiting. I sighed—I only had a little bit of time with Sara. I didn't want to waste a moment bathing the dumb dog. But of course, I would also deny her nothing… or, at least, very little… So I bent down, wrapping one arm under his butt, tucked against his back legs, the other against his chest, in front of his front legs. He whimpered, but let me pick him up, and then Sara opened the door and once again, led both of us into the bathroom.

I set Hank down once my feet hit tile and the damage he could do to her white carpets was minimal, and glanced over at her—she was, for some reason, undressing. "What, uh…" My mouth was dry. I swallowed convulsively. "…What are you doing?"

She laughed, throwing the blouse she'd worn into the clothes hamper and bending down to turn on the bath water in only her skirt and a little camisole. I eyed it surreptitiously, trying to look like it didn't affect me. After a moment I realized two things—she wasn't stripping down, she'd just removed her shirt to keep it away from doggy water, and there was no doubt in her mind that it was affecting me. There was a tint of heat along her cheekbones, the sly smile on her lips, the twinkle in her eyes. She knew it, and she liked that it affected me.

That knowledge had my fingers twitching to touch her… kiss her again. Because if it affected her that is affected me—and clearly it did; Why else would she be smiling?—then it meant that a casual brush of my hand over the revealed skin on her shoulder would be perfectly acceptable. Desired, even. Expected, perhaps.

My fingers twitched again, but Hank sat down quickly, causing a splash that made Sara laugh and turn to look at me, wondering why I wasn't getting ready to help her. So with a slight groan that I regretted almost immediately—did I really need to flaunt the fact that I was almost forty?—I lowered myself to my knees beside her as she turned the water off. She nudged me with her shoulder and though I gave her a small, simple smile, the contact had electricity running through me.

I glanced at her and her dark eyes were teasing… taunting. She flashed a smile and began to soap Hank, working all the sand from his fur, and I helped as best I could, remembering in newly remembered vivid detail why exactly I'd been unable to go a night, back in Boston, without dreaming of her… She was a tease.

Unintentionally, most of the time, but still a tease. Sexy, sweet, no longer innocent but certainly not promiscuous… the wanton attitude, the deepness in her eyes… they sent me hurdling back into those fantasies and not only was I seeing her kneeling beside a bathtub, but every time I glanced at her I saw her in the shower in the motel room, or tied up in my dream, or lying on my bed, touching herself because I'd implied that somehow that wouldn't be crossing a line that me touching her myself would have.

I thought of cold showers… decomps… tried to list every type of Lepidoptera I had ever seen, including when I'd gone to the rainforest in college. It was going to be a long night, and it was only late afternoon.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

A/N: Sorry both of the updates today have been a little short. We just got a new computer because the other one was horrible, so I spent most of the night installing things. :)

But now, everything is good in the world! I have a fancy new computer, the fiance has a computer he's allowed to use even when I'm writing (hehe--he gets the old one), and Sprinkles gets lots of cardboard to chew. It's a good day in our house.

...So, I just wanted to point out that my reviewers are apparently vultures. I want to say at least three people offered to either take Grissom off Sara's hands if she wasn't sure she wanted him right away, or satisfy his needs if Sara wouldn't put out. Just sayin'.

Enjoy!

* * *

Okay, I admit it. I was teasing. …I was.

It just… it wasn't fair that he could drive me crazy so easily. That one look, one touch, left me weak and wanting. So I made him weak and wanting. And then I thought things were fairer… even if the sexual tension had gone into overdrive.

He found excuses to touch me, while we scrubbed down Hank, and it made me extremely happy that he didn't rise immediately after I'd drained the water and slowly coaxed Hank out, cloaked already in an old towel. He didn't want it to be obvious how much I'd affected him—and believe me, it would have been obvious. Because I'd already caught a glimpse of straining fabric while washing the dog.

So I let him get up slowly, and instead stood and bent all the way forward, my back to him, to rub down Hank. Hank appreciated the rub down… and I think Gil was appreciative too.

I guided Hank out onto the balcony to dry in the sun with a big bowl of water, and came back to the bathroom. He'd stood up and was piling wet towels into the hamper. I smiled, certain my hair was a mess, my skin gleaming with steam, my camisole damp, my skirt rumpled… Around another man, I would have felt self-conscious. But Gil… I knew him. And I knew he had always loved the way I looked after sex… or pleasingly mussed from sleep… or my clothing rearranged after being worn all day.

"Sweetly disheveled," he'd said once. "Pleasantly fuckable," he'd said another time. …He hadn't sworn all that often—so I knew, when the words left his mouth, how unbelievably honest they were. …I can't help it; I took advantage of what I knew about the man.

He looked at me, his mouth falling open, and then he turned away, putting the last of the towels in the hamper and clearing his throat. "I, uh… I wanted to take you to dinner tonight. Maybe… maybe you should, uh… get changed and… and you can take me back to the hotel? What time did you want me to pick you up?"

A sly grin crossed my face. "Why don't we stay in? You always used to cook for me—let me cook for you now. We can throw in a movie, cuddle up on the couch… and I'll start dinner when it's over."

I could see him thinking it over. We both smelled like dog and were more than a little wet… and staying here would test his self-control. But staying here meant not having to leave… it meant cuddling on the couch and eating in private, where flirting and sexual innuendo could take on a life of their own, if we so desired. He swallowed hard, making one final attempt. "I, uh… I don't really have a change of clothes… I… I wanted…"

"To look nice?" He nodded, and I smiled, moving close to him and putting my hands on my hips, knowing the movement accentuated my already scantily clad chest. He drew in a deep breath. "Gil… you do look nice." I pursed my lips a little knowingly. "Sweetly disheveled…."

He blushed, and acquiesced, and I returned a few minutes later in a soft pair of black lounge pants and a tank top with a pair of Berkeley sweat pants for him to change into as Hank really had gotten him very wet. He kept on the Entomologist T-shirt, changing in the bathroom while I moved out to the kitchen and removed sodas from my fridge. I slid the balcony door open, for Hank, but he seemed content in the sun and merely panted at me, a doggy smile on his lips.

I set the cokes on the coffee table and turned toward the bathroom as he stepped out, looking nervous and offering me a half-smile that melted my heart. I beamed at him, feeling all of a sudden very much like I had as a seventeen year old girl seeing him walk into my lecture hall as a guest speaker. The only difference was… I wasn't confused about why I found him so appealing, now. I knew exactly what I wanted, and how to go about getting it when I decided I couldn't wait anymore.

I gestured him over and let myself be wrapped up in his arms when he approached. We settled into the couch and into a movie that was on TV but which I could not name if my life depended on it. Instead, I ended up lying on my back, my head resting in his lap, looking up at him and arguing about a journal article that had been causing quite a stir in forensics circles. He fought back animatedly when he was speaking, and when I argued, he fought back much less fairly—his hands ran through my hair, his fingertips traced my jaw and collarbone and from my shoulders down to my elbows. I would shiver in the middle of a particularly brilliant point, and he would grin like a little boy who'd outsmarted his babysitter.

…His babysitter who was letting his fingertips tease the stretch of skin between her pants and her shirt, that is. I shivered again and he bent down to kiss me again, just as soft and slow as before… but there was no pressing need for the kiss to end. No gazing tourists, or impatient boxers, or melting ice cream cones… and when I pressed back, deepening it and slipping a hand around the back of his neck, he let me. A palm cupped my face, the other remained tangled in my hair, and I was in absolute heaven.

He tasted the way a library smells—cool, papery, ancient… heavy with the weight of the world's knowledge—but warmer… like honey left in the sun, or hot chocolate after a long day spent sledding. It was exactly as I remembered, and I hadn't realized how vital such a taste had been until it flooded my senses, leaving me breathless… leaving me wanting more and more and more…

I tucked him down more insistently and my fingers gripped the curls at the back of his neck to keep him close, eliciting a moan from the back of his throat. I had often gripped there while we made love…and the act of doing so again had a thousand memories flittering through my head, spurring me on. I ran my tongue over his bottom lip and he trembled and gasped, pulling me at first closer but then pulling back abruptly, as if realizing his mistake.

"Sara…" he breathed, looking alarmed. Guilty. "I… I'm sorry. I just… I…"

I frowned and sat up. The man looked like he thought he'd just signed his own execution order. I laid a hand to his cheek. "…I… don't know why you're sorry, Gil."

"I… I just, I pushed you. And I wasn't going to push you, but you… but no, it's not an excuse, I just—"

I moved my thumb up to cover his lips, stopping him. "…I pushed you. Why… do you seem like you're… afraid?"

He frowned, looking down, and the pucker of his lips made him look very much like a little boy trying not to cry. "I… I just don't want to… screw this up."

I shook my head, slowly. "Gil… you're not. I… wanted you to kiss me. …I _want _you to kiss me."

The corner of his mouth rose, but it didn't look like a smile. "…Okay."

I was getting upset now. "…Unless there's something else?"

He looked like he was going to deny it, until he caught my gaze. He sighed, looking at his lap again. "I… Even if you want it, I… I'm afraid that we'll… rush this, and then… you'll realize what a mistake it was to go so fast, and you'll just… want to be done with me entirely."

I shook my head, half wanting to wrap him up in my arms and comfort him and half wanting to yell at him. "Gil…" He was still looking down. I huffed. "Gil, look at me please." He met my eyes, and I wavered again—he just looked so sad. "Listen to me… I'm not… I'm not going to run away or… or 'be done with you,' even if I did regret going too fast… which I probably wouldn't. …I'm not big on regret, and I want this to work out as much as you do…"

He gave a reluctant half smile but nodded, and it seemed like he was more relaxed, at least. I sat there a moment, and then sighed—the moment was over. I hugged him gently, kissed him quickly, and then stood up. "What do you feel like eating? I'm a better cook, now, but I still don't think I quite have your talent…"

And he followed me into the kitchen, an easy smile replacing the hesitant one. I breathed a short sigh of relief. So far, so good. …But as soon as I could, I was going to kiss that worrying, evasive entomologist silly. I was already yearning for the contact with everything in me, so it was really only a matter of time.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Sorry for the delay in posting. School work and all that. :) Hope you guys enjoy!

(Don't read this if you're unspoiled for the latest episode...) So I can't wait to read about bug-chasing canoe rides for a honeymoon! ...Am I the only one who rewound their DVR to watch Sara's 'grissom lines' like ten times? Ahh! I've been going through withdrawals, and sadly, the fiance doesn't quite share my passion. ...He fell asleep during the episode tonight. :( So I need to gush to my lovely readers instead! Yay! -bounces-

...Okay. That's it. Reviews, yes? P.S. I heart vultures. :)

* * *

Sara was… a seductress in sheep's clothing.

She reminded me of… well, myself, six years previous. She found excuses to brush against me in the kitchen, the smile in her eyes telling me she knew exactly what she was doing. She teased me… she slipped double entendres into the conversation with the skills of a master, not even blushing or quirking a smile to tell me she'd noticed her words or what they were doing to me. She offered me tastes of the sauce for the zucchini pasta from the wooden spoon… fed whole black olives, directly from the tips of her fingers to my mouth…tasted things herself, licking at sauce on her fingertips, and moaned soft appreciation for the taste, causing warmth to spread in my abdomen like a blanket unfolding and covering.

I gripped the edge of the counter, watching her move around her small kitchen, opening wine and pouring each of us a glass, the smell of her cooking lying over us like a heavy haze of warmth and comfort. It was just so good… it made you want to smile lazily, lean back against the counters, drink deeply from your wine.

I decided that I needed to leave the kitchen, or we would never get to eat her delicious meal.

Instead, while she was checking the oven, I meandered back into her living room, over to her bookshelf. It would be a safe place to browse, I figured… enough there to pretend it was keeping my attention so I would have an excuse for not returning to her… maybe some conversation starters… probably not too invasive.

It was quite a large bookshelf—The bottom rows held the heavier books… old textbooks… books on forensics and physics and social work and… and the book I'd given her for Christmas, the first year. Well before we were intimate. I sighed softly that she still had it, and that was in good condition—clearly she'd taken care of it—but the corners were worn, the pages not pressed together quite as tightly as they would in a book that hadn't been opened in years.

The next rows up were the classics—several were leather bound editions, containing the complete works of Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Tennyson, and Wilde. The last of which, of course, brought a smirk. How very Sara.

And finally—the top two rows were romance novels. They were stacked on top of each other, bottoms to tops, because she clearly hadn't had enough shelves to line them up only one book high…. and they were packed in tight. I looked around for the title of the book we'd read, briefly, together… with the Robin Hood wannabe and the dark-haired girl who had reminded me of her and the friend-figure who made up the torrid triangle…. But I couldn't find it. I had also bought her a romance series, the following Christmas… I scanned the books, and found them noticeably absent as well.

I frowned. From the look of the bookshelf, she'd never sold or thrown a book away in her adult life… where had they gone?

"Gil?"

I jumped in surprise and turned around. "Yes?"

There was a hesitant amusement in her voice. "Didn't you hear me? I've been calling…"

I blinked. "Oh. …No, I… I was…" Should I ask about the book? "…distracted."

Her eyebrows came together in the question even as she smiled dismissively. "Oh…. Okay. Well, everything's ready to eat, if… if you wanted to come sit down."

"Yeah, yes, of course. …Thank you."

Her eyebrow quirked but she left it alone, heading back into the kitchen where the scent was now so overwhelming I was actually salivating, taking down plates and pulling out forks and bringing them to the little glass table she had just beside the kitchen. I took over setting the table while she retrieved the pan and the bottle of wine and set them on the table before the two plates. We sat down, and she glanced at me with a strange look on her face.

"…What is it?"

My eyes opened wider. "I… I'm sorry?"

She frowned. "I spent too much time not saying or asking what was on my mind because I was worried about your reaction… about giving you space. Forgive me, but I'm not really concerned with offering such courtesies anymore. Something… is different. Did I upset you in some way?"

I shook my head. "No, Sara, of course not."

"Then what is it?" She asked, clearly frustrated.

"I… It's nothing."

She observed me through dark eyes for a long moment, considering. "…I'm not saying that you have to tell me everything… but I won't be blatantly lied to anymore."

I swallowed. This, apparently, was a problem. I sighed. "I… was looking at your bookshelf. You… you still have the book I gave you for Christmas, the first year… the physics in forensics book… but not the romance novels I gave you the year after, or the one we read together…. And come to think of it, I gave you an ocean one as well, and I didn't see it…" I turned around, scanning the bottom shelf again. Not there.

She bit her bottom lip, looking reluctant. But the hurt must have been visible in my eyes because she reached a hand out to me and locked her fingers through mine. "I… got rid of everything that reminded me of you."

I nodded, slowly. This hurt, but it was honest… and I couldn't blame her. I would have wanted to erase me too. "Oh." I said, rather expressionlessly, mostly because I didn't know what else to say. A silence stretched between us and I looked down at my plate, wishing I'd just hidden my hurt better. I had ruined what might have been a perfect night.

She sighed, looking down too. "I… I had a girlfriend in Boston who I confided in. …I never told her you were my teacher, but she knew you were an older lover… and… the manipulations. She told me the best thing to do would be to take you out of my life entirely… I… Gil, it… it had been almost two years and I still wasn't able to sleep consistently, every night, because I was thinking of you. I… was slacking in my classes, retreating from the social life I'd built after you left… She was worried about me."

I nodded, slowly, trying to look like I understood and didn't blame her. Because I did understand and I would never blame her for a reaction to my actions… "Did… it help?"

She kept her eyes on the wine in front of her and shook her head slowly.

I squeezed the hand that hadn't let go of mine through all of this. "…I'm sorry, Sara. …I can't even tell you how sorry."

She nodded. "I know. I do. I told you that I forgave you a long time ago…"

I tilted my head. "Why… did you keep the forensics book?"

She smirked, finally lifting her fork and digging in to the food before her, which reminded me that I hadn't taken a bite yet either. "I, uh… I reasoned that the others were from my lover, but that book… was a gift from my teacher and mentor…"

I smirked too, putting a forkful into my mouth and immediately realizing that she'd been being kind when she'd told me she wasn't as good a cook now as I had ever been. She was probably better. "Sara… this is amazing." She beamed, shrugging, and I smiled too. Even a self-assured Sara loved my praise.

And just like that, things were okay again… we laughed and talked through dinner, finishing the bottle between us. And when she rose, putting our dishes in the sink and breaking out a Tupperware full of homemade brownies for desert, along with the offer of opening a second bottle… I hesitated.

"I, uh… I have to drive back, tonight." I said, nervous. She raised an eyebrow.

"You don't have a car, Gil… and I weight much less than you. There's no way I can take you back to your hotel tonight…"

I laughed. "If there's one thing I do know, inexperience or not, lightweight or not, Sara Sidle can hold her liquor…"

She smirked, knowing full well that I had no intention of coaxing her to drive, and seemed to be remembering all the times she'd drank in restaurants as a seventeen and eighteen year old girl, simply because she'd been with me. "We could have gotten in so much trouble!"

I grinned. "The recklessness of youth…"

Her smile softened and she slowly uncorked the second bottle of wine. I swallowed hard. "You were older then than I am now…"

I didn't know how to respond, because her tone had changed. Did I make a joke, telling her to stop rubbing it in? Did I answer her seriously? Was she expressing concern over her own youth or my lack thereof? She moved over, refilling each of our glasses. "…It feels like a lifetime ago." Her voice was equally soft and I realized she was not concerned—she was just a little bit intoxicated, and she was wistfully reminiscing.

"It does… Sara, uh… maybe we shouldn't drink anymore, tonight."

She lifted her gaze to me. "…Why?"

I frowned. "I, uh… People…. When they drink… They do things they regret later."

She frowned. "You're… concerned we'll have sex, and I'll regret it?"

I nodded, and she snorted, just a little too loudly. "Gil, honey… What do you think all of this was? I mean, maybe my goal wasn't necessarily sex tonight… but I meant for something to happen."

I swallowed, and again—my mouth had gone dry. "I… Sara…"

"No. I… I don't want you to tell me 'temperance.' I'm not a little girl you can manipulate, anymore. You don't get to withhold sex, for whatever reason—twisted or pure—like you did last time. If I want it, and you want it, then we're going to have sex, or you're going to leave. I won't sit around, waiting for you to be sure or… or beg you, over and over, again."

I was absolutely stunned. For someone who had claimed she'd forgiven me, she seemed fairly upset. Although I couldn't blame her for not wanting to go down the same road again, whether she'd forgiven me or not. I breathed in deeply.

"Honey…" She raised an eyebrow, almost like a threat, and I made certain my words weren't hastily compiled. "I'm sorry. I… I wasn't trying to… withhold sex or… or treat you that way, again. I… I think it's better if we wait… you know that I'm afraid of rushing into this… but you're in control, this time. You know as well as I do that I want it—so if you do too and… if you decide that that's what we should do, honey, we'll do it. I just… I'm trying so hard not to screw this up again."

She leveled me in her gaze, and then reached for a brownie. "…I don't want to feel like I'm forcing you to."

I frowned. "No, Sara… Believe me, you… you won't _ever_ find me unwilling… I just know that when people have an established way of relating to each other, they slip back into it easily. …We're not the same people we used to be, but… but I just want to be sure that I'm not starting to be calculating and you're not trying to be pleasing and that I won't end up losing you again."

She watched me for another long moment, nodded softly, and stood up, locking doors and closing the patio door and refilling the bowl of water beside the bowl of dog food she'd borrowed from her neighbor on the floor of the kitchen. I watched her, wondering… and then she was at my side, her hand extended.

I took it, trying my hardest not to show my hesitation—I had said it was in her hands, and it was.

She pulled me to my feet and back towards the bathroom and past it, turning lights off and abandoning the open wine and brownie container on the table behind us. My heart was racing, my breathing tight in my chest. I closed my eyes, just for a moment, gathering the strength to quash my fears. She wanted this to work as much as I did, and she knew my concerns. If she pushed us onwards… then I would go, and hope that it wouldn't mean the end of everything.

Trust. I would trust her the way she'd trusted me, and if I were as disappointed, in the end, as she had been with me… Well, it was only what I deserved, wasn't it?


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I do not own.

A/N: Let me know what you think! TGIF! Yay canoes! ...What do you think Grissom would say if he knew the germans and the CIA were photographing his wife? :) That's my next request for a story, because last time I asked, two appeared! :)

Also, Kathy, you're stuck with cold coffees... Sara totally wants him. That's why she hasn't killed him, _Jelly_, in this world or any other one... -gives a very stern look- :)

* * *

Sara's bedroom was purple, her bedding white, all of her furniture brown. The headboard was large—the bed being large as well—the bedside tables traditional and functional, the dresser and mirror atop it the most ornate pieces in the room. I glanced around—the blue butterfly in the shadow box I'd given her, long ago, was on the wall above her bed, framed by wrought-iron decorative candle holders, each holding a thick white candle. I had the sudden image of it all falling down on top of us, but a glance at the headboard told me that it was sturdy—no amount of rough sex would slam it into the wall and cause anything to fall.

Well, this, at least, was something personal she'd kept of me. I glanced over at her, but she wasn't smiling. In fact, she was frowning… dramatically. She sat on the end of her bed and looked like she was frustrated. My eyebrows drew together and I moved to my knees, tentatively resting a hand on either side of her hips on the bed. "…Honey?"

Her lips twitched in agitation and her eyes slid sideways, to avoid me. "I… can go, if… if you changed your mind. I'll call a cab…"

"No."

I waited, hoping she would expand on the thought, but she didn't. I sighed softly, lifting my right hand gently to her face. "What is it, honey?"

She huffed. "I just… this doesn't feel right anymore." For a long moment my heart hammered in my chest—_What_ didn't feel right? Us? Or the sex? Or….what?

Thankfully, she continued, and I was spared having to find the words to ask her. "I… I really wasn't planning for… this, tonight. I thought we'd curl up on the couch, do some kissing… maybe fall asleep together, or maybe call you a cab. But then… I just… I'm not used to being told 'no' when it comes to sex. …You're the only person whose ever delayed it once I indicated that I was ready. So it… it felt like you were withholding, again… using sex as a tool rather than an honest interaction. But now…"

She sighed and turned her entire head away from me. "Now I feel like I'm using it as a tool. I basically told you that you had to come have sex with me, regardless of what you think about the subject, or we were over."

I shook my head slowly, bringing both hands to her cheeks now and gently turning her to face me. "Sara… First of all, you're not forcing me to do anything. When I… did that, before… I was forcing you to wait, something you didn't want to do, for horrible reasons. You want me to do something that I… I really, really want to, and because I made you feel vulnerable again. …I didn't want to ever make you feel that way again. I'm sorry, Sara."

She shook her head. "You don't need to keep apologizing… I'm over it. …I thought I was over it."

I frowned. "…What can I do?" She was so beautiful, even sad, and it broke my heart to see her that way. If it would be better that I just leave—either just for now or for forever—I would do that. I was done hurting her.

She shook her head, and her voice was broken. "I… don't know…"

She met my eyes willingly now, and after a long moment staring into my eyes, clouded and uncertain and frightened, her hands rose to my cheeks as well, sliding over them, her thumbs on my cheek bones, her fingertips tracing my jaw, her palms too warm against the hollows of my cheeks. I could feel myself trembling, but I didn't turn away… and then she had bent down and kissed me.

I didn't know how to respond, but I did—I was emotional, afraid of losing her, and if she was kissing me, it meant she still wanted me. …She wasn't sending me away. I gently pulled her in closer, deepening the kiss, and she moaned against me, her hands tugging me up by my face, and I could only obey. But despite the fervor with which we tumbled, limb over limb, hands everywhere, up from the side of the bed to the pillows… upon reaching them, everything gentled.

I don't know if that was my doing or hers… I just knew that I didn't want our first time back together in six years to be frantic and lust-filled. I had wanted to spend hours worshipping her… but now, I thought, maybe that wasn't right either. It should be as mutual as possible. And I shouldn't plan how it would happen—I just let it happen. Still—that didn't mean I had to be a slave to my impulses. My kisses softened as they got deeper, and her moans became gentler too… a soft, longing hum against my mouth instead of impatient whimpers deep in her throat.

My entire body was pulsing with my awareness of her, yet my fingertips sliding over the skin on her lower back, simply because they couldn't wait for contact anymore, were slow. One of her legs wound its way between mine, wrapping around my leg and pulling it between hers. My erection was tight up against her thigh and I groaned, breaking from her mouth in breathless pants and finding her neck instead. She still tasted so good… so sweet… so very Sara.

And then I was gasping into her neck instead of laying my attentions on it, because she'd lowered a hand slowly down my chest—our pace still painstakingly gentle—and rubbed against the strain in my pants. My hands dug into her shoulders as my hips bucked against her, involuntarily. I wanted her… I wanted her so badly… did she want me just as badly? I slid my hand down as well, cupping her through her pants and applying pressure, relishing the guttural moan my touch coaxed from her lips.

We teased each other, over our clothes, for so very long… but she never made a move to remove clothing or slip a hand underneath, so neither did I. …She was in charge. The problem was that it had been so long without her… and nobody did to me what Sara did. I was very, very quickly approaching climax, just from her administrations through my pants… and warning her only spurred her on. She said she wanted me to come. ...Which was no help at all.

That was when I moved my hand lower, not only pressing against her clitoris through the sweat pants and underwear, but pressing my fingers, through her clothing, against her opening. She was wet enough that I could feel her through the layers, and she responded to the changed stimulation emphatically. She was gasping… moaning… shouting expletives I'd only ever heard leave her mouth in this very type of setting, and I was worried I wouldn't make it—her hand had never stopped moving against me, despite my actions, and it was amazing.

What was more amazing was when I felt the unmistakable feeling of her hands gripping my shoulders in earnest and he body positively shaking… and then I felt her muscles begin to tighten rhythmically against my fingers. Jesus Christ, Sara Sidle was coming, right now, with me… with only my fingers, and hardly that. …I really, really wanted to hold… but one, "Oh god, Gil, come… come now…" and then the pealing wail of another wave dragging her under…

It's enough to inspire spontaneous ejaculation, never mind the non-spontaneous variety her hand was quickly working me towards. I gripped her and groaned and panted and moaned against her chest and shoulder, going and going.

By the time I'd come down entirely, she was drifting to sleep, and I wasn't far behind her. I pulled her body to mine, enjoying the feel of limbs intertwining, and let myself go. Maybe it seemed a little juvenile… this over-the-clothes thing… and maybe it was. But Sara knew as much as I did that even if she couldn't stand to have me tell her no, we weren't ready to make love yet. But she wasn't ready to let me have the control to say whether we were ready… and she had wanted something to happen. This was something. …Something we were ready for.

For now, I would count the night a success.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Sorry for the little bit of angst interrupting the fluff. I don't think I can write without _some_ conflict, not to mention... after everything they've been through, I figure they can't just jump into happily ever after without a few issues.

Okay. Enjoy! :)

* * *

I fell asleep quickly—emotional orgasms will do that to you—but I was awake early with a pounding headache that I knew had nothing to do with the wine I'd consumed the night before. I knew without looking at the clock that it was before six in the morning, the washed out light just beginning to peek around the edges of my bedroom curtains told me as much. I felt… strange. Just like… things weren't right.

Let's be fair—I didn't necessarily feel _wrong_, but…

When you wake up entangled with the sexiest man you've ever known who gives you butterflies with a single glance from those deep blue eyes… you should feel ecstatic…. You should feel like everything is finally right in the world. You should want to roll over and wake him up in exactly that way the two of you had fallen asleep.

I just wanted to get out of bed. Have a minute to myself, take some Tylenol, and maybe jump in the shower. Alone. …I very, very much wanted to jump in the shower alone.

We'd had so many times waking up together—before and after we were intimate, and then before and after that intimacy progressed to making love. …None of them had felt like this.

It… wasn't that I didn't want him. Truth be told, I really did… I was falling in love with the man all over again. Everything he did… every word, every action, every nuance he was entirely unaware of… My heart was beating faster just thinking about our kiss on the pier, and the little boy smile he sometimes got.

I huffed softly and rolled over slowly, but in one fluid movement—often times, trying to be careful drew more attention than just doing it and getting it over with. And I was right—he rolled over as well, and went back to softly snoring, and I slid my legs off the bed and rolled off myself, glancing at him again, just to be certain he was still deeply asleep.

…I just really needed some time away from the soft noises of him sleeping and the warmth of his breath on my neck, to get my bearings… analyze my feelings… feel more human and self-assured before I faced him. Because I felt… vulnerable… right now.

I collected a tank top and my favorite old pair of jeans, as well as clean undergarments, and trekked down the hall to the guest bathroom. Hank was lying sideways across the entrance to the hallway from my living room and his lifted his head sleepily and wagged his tail once or twice when he saw me. I smiled, and he laid his head back down, clearly still tired. My heart swelled at the sight of him, and I was sent back more than six years, back to when we had been a family and Hank had been our baby.

I closed and locked the bathroom door, set down my clothing, and turned the water on, adjusting the temperature before examining myself in the mirror. I didn't look… anything but tired. My lips weren't swollen or my cheeks flushed—and granted, it had been hours previous, but… I didn't even look especially happy or satisfied or my hair messier than normal. I frowned, opening a cupboard and taking down Tylenol and taking three despite the label telling me not to take more than the recommended dosage. I downed it from water from the sink, and brushed my teeth while the bathroom filled with steam, making my clothes feel warm and sticky.

I stripped down and stepped into the shower, not turning on the fan. It was too loud on a morning like this one, and besides that, I didn't want to be cold when I got out of the shower. The water was hot but I sat through it, letting my body adjust. Hot water was better for thinking. I squirted the spare shampoo I kept it here for occasions when my mom or a girlfriend would spend the night into my hand and quickly scrubbed it into my scalp, perhaps more aggressively than necessary.

It was just… even when he was gasping out warnings that I stop… that he couldn't hold back… I had trembled. I had told him in my best bedroom voice that I wanted him to come, and I had hidden my shaking hands in pure enthusiasm for the activity in which I was involved. He made me feel… weak. It wasn't altogether a bad thing—the other men I had dated had never made me feel that way because I hadn't cared enough… they didn't have the power that I knew this man had… Anyone who didn't have that kind of power over me wasn't going to be 'the one.'

But it scared me.

I had been in complete control—he'd followed me to the bedroom, willing if apprehensive—and then I'd gotten emotional. I'd doubted my own motives for assertiveness… doubted whether I wanted anything serious to happen at all… doubted whether I'd really forgiven him. Which was ridiculous—when I thought about our past, it was bittersweet, but no anger remained. And the man snoring in my bed right now was not the man who'd seduced my adolescent self. He was gentle… honest… unassuming. …He let himself be as vulnerable as I had, and yet he didn't agonize over it.

True, I had a reason to fear vulnerability when it came to him—but really, I wasn't afraid he'd hurt me again. I wasn't afraid he'd manipulate me again. It wasn't that I was afraid of what he'd do with my vulnerability—it was that he might see it at all. …Maybe because I was proud of the person I'd become… proud of the progress I'd made. I was proud to own a home, work a professional job that I loved, have friends and kids I mentored and a family I'd reconnected to. I wasn't Sara Sidle, foster child, anymore.

When I he saw my vulnerability, it felt like all those other things were thrown into question. If I wasn't as self-assured as I seemed, maybe I still was that other person.

I conditioned as aggressively as I had shampooed.

…But I knew I wasn't. I knew that, and Gil knew it too.

And if I wanted this to work—and I really, really did—then I needed to accept that I would be vulnerable in front of him, and that it didn't mean anything more than that. …And I wanted our relationship to be equal. Not me in charge, not me taking on the role he'd abandoned when he'd left me… equal. So that meant that I couldn't decide that we would or we wouldn't… it had to just happen, when we both wanted it and when we were both ready. …I didn't want him waiting to see if I would remove his clothing before he felt like he could remove mine any more than I wanted him to always assume that he could, whenever he decided he wanted to.

Good lord, we were still dysfunctional if I had to map this all out in my mind.

I turned the water off after hastily soaping and rinsing, figuring that I could go another day without shaving. At least now I knew what I wanted… what I had distorted and forgotten the night before. I dressed, dried off, and pulled my hair into a ponytail before moving out to give Hank some fresh food and water and start the coffee.

I had my third cup in front of me and the crossword half-filled out, a light breeze coming through from the open balcony door where Hank was enjoying the morning, when Gil came hesitantly down the hallway, his curls rumpled, his clothing wrinkled. He was wearing the pants he'd changed out of the night before, and with a small wrinkle of my nose I realized he'd finished in the sweat pants he'd slept in. I should have thought of that and offered him another pair, last night, before I passed out.

When he took the final step into the living area, out of the hallway, he stopped… seeming uncertain. I smiled brightly at him and it seemed like his entire body relaxed at the simple gesture. I felt guilty immediately. He should be nervous, but not this nervous… I really didn't want to punish him or make him prove anything to me. He sat down beside me and I leaned forward, kissing his lips softly. "Coffee?"

He smiled just as brightly. "That'd be great, thanks."

I retrieved him a steaming cup and then sat back down, surveying him. He took a drink and then caught my eyes and, realizing that more was on my mind than I'd let on, he immediately set the cup back down to the glass surface before him. I bit on my bottom lip, and sighed.

"…If we're going to do this, we… need to be on the same page."

He swallowed, and nodded. "I… agree…" His sentence ended uncertainly—not a question but certainly not a statement. I smiled.

"You… have to stop treating me like I'm going to walk away if you say the wrong thing." His eyebrows rose, and I sighed. "I want this to work too—and if the past is really in the past, then… you don't need to feel like you're making anything up to me. I'm… not doing you any favors. I want to be with you. I just… I want it to be… as equals. I… want us to start fresh."

He frowned. "I… guess I thought we were."

I lifted a shoulder and tilted my head, expressing that if we were, we hadn't been doing it well. "I don't… just mean trying again. I mean… forget everything that happened in Boston. You're a man, I'm a woman, and we're starting to date. You don't have anything to prove, I don't have anything to forgive. We play everything by ear… Because… If you constantly feel like you're making up for something that I've told you I've forgiven, eventually that mind set is going to sink in. You're going to resent not having any control, and I'm going to feel like I'm entitled to it. …When it comes time to make decisions about our relationship, you'll offer to give up everything, even when you're not really willing to… and I'll assume that I can take everything, even when initially I would have been willing to find a middle ground. …It'll destroy us."

He watched me for a long moment, and then nodded. "Okay... we'll… start fresh."

I smiled, letting out a breath. "Great."

"And… last night?"

I watched him, uncertain what he was asking.

"I… don't regret it, but… I think, from now on, we should just… let things happen more naturally. Less discussing, and less... of me being in control. More… feeling."

He nodded and reached out to take my hand. I gave it, and we both squeezed. He lifted his coffee to his lips again and took a drink, glancing at the clock on the wall. "So, do you have time for breakfast before you meet with your girls, or should Hank and I get out of your hair?"

I looked at him in surprise. He'd remembered that I met with the foster girls I mentored on Saturdays. A smile broke across my face, and I knew exactly why I'd loved the man, way back when, and knew exactly why I was falling for him all over again now. He really was amazing.

"…I've got time."


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

A/N: So I'm just young enough to not remember the 90's all that well. Thus, all my information on clothing and hair styles is straight from the google machine... which proved, in Dead Ringer, to be less than infallible. But it's what I have. :)

Let me know what you think!

* * *

I made chocolate chip waffles in Sara's kitchen while she gushed over how she shouldn't be splurging for breakfast because she and her girls were going to make chocolate chip cookies later. I raised an eyebrow, pouring waffle batter into her waffle iron.

"Is that the whole plan for the afternoon? Baking cookies?"

She grinned. "Well, my group is competing against some of the others—we're using the classroom they use for cooking classes at the community center. Everything we make—besides the cookies we eat—will go to the community center's bake sale. They let us use their facilities for free, even after hours… so we try to give back as much as possible. After we clean up, everyone takes a cookie, pops some popcorn, and goes to their auditorium. There's a projector, and they're all roughly the same age, so we shouldn't have too much trouble picking a movie."

"Do you always do so much? I mean… like such planned activities?"

"No—last Saturday I took them all to the beach and started teaching them how to surf. Once a month they try to get the groups together and do a group thing, so the girls can meet others and make friends, but for the most part I just have my three… We've actually been planning a sleep over for next Saturday, but I'll have to tell them today I'm going to postpone it."

I frowned, pulling waffles out of the hot iron. "Why?"

"…Well, be-cause you're here."

I smiled. "Well, I could tear myself away from you for one night, if it's for them… Or, I mean, I could meet them too. If… if that doesn't break any rules."

Her face positively glowed at my words. "You'd want to meet my girls?"

I smirked. She seemed so disbelievingly happy. "Of course I would. They're important to you, they're important to me." I slid her plate over to her and together we carried our meal into the dining room to sit beside the abandoned crossword and the lukewarm coffee.

Just as we were easing into our seats, her phone rang. She gave me a half smile of apology and rose to answer the one on the wall between the dining room and kitchen.

"Hello?" I could distinctly hear a female voice, though it sounded like gibberish. "Okay, slow down. Why can't… well, right, but… I don't know who—" I glanced up when I realized that she had stopped speaking this last time not because the woman on the other end of the line had interrupted her, but because she was looking at me intently. "Hold that thought. I might have a solution." She covered the mouth piece with a hand and pulled it away from her face. "Are you busy today?"

My eyes widened. I shook my head. "…No."

"You want to be the cookie judge?"

My eyebrows raised higher. "I… Yeah, sure. If you need me."

"Great," she breathed, smiling again and lifting the receiver back to her face. "I've got a judge… An old friend…" She blushed at whatever the woman said and looked away from me. "Maybe…" She laughed. "Alright, I'll see you soon. …Bye."

She hung up the phone and returned to the table, sitting and picking up her fork immediately but not eating. "Thanks Gil. You just averted a tragedy."

"Your judge backed out of a cookie-tasting gig?"

She chuckled, cutting into the grid-shaped breakfast. "It was Jodie—head of this mentoring program. But her daughter's got the stomach flu. Apparently she's been puking since four this morning. She was hoping her husband could take the day off, but apparently he's got something important he can't miss today."

I smiled. "Well… I'm happy to help. …I'm excited to meet your girls."

She flushed again, and it made me happy to see it again. "I… They're going to have a lot of questions for you."

"Oh?" I asked, curious, but she gave me very little.

"Oh." She smirked, and started eating her waffle more quickly. "You'd better hurry if you want to stop and get a change of clothes…"

I showered while she dressed and cleaned up after breakfast, despite my arguments that she let me help, and in another pair of sweatpants and a borrowed t-shirt that her girls had made her—it had their handprints and said GIRL POWER in pink paint across the front… they were apparently big fans of the Spice Girls—we headed out, giving Hank a pat on the way to the door. He wagged his tail and rolled onto his side, ready to sleep the day away in the cool air conditioning that Sara's condo provided.

I don't know how, but Sara convinced me to keep the shirt on, so it was a quick change into jeans and a backwards baseball cap—I felt the need to make myself look at least a little masculine—and we were back in her car, headed towards the community center.

"Now, while we're here, you have to be objective—you can't hang out at our kitchenette. That was the whole reason we needed you—everyone else has a bias."

I smirked. "Apparently I'm about to be scrutinized as thoroughly as when I testify…"

She grinned. "Community center, court room… same thing, really." She signaled and then switched lanes, glancing at me a few times. "Speaking of… I never asked you—Why were you outside the court room the other day?" I frowned and she did too. "You don't want to tell me?"

I shook my head. "No, I just… I think the person I was headed to see was the D.A. you were so proud you'd just beaten…"

She laughed. "Matthews. He used to work in Vegas…"

I nodded, a rueful smile on my lips. "He's an amateur entomologist. We email every once and a while—generally when a new paper comes out. I left a couple textbooks he'd wanted to borrow in his office because he was in court at the time, and then half-way back to my car, I realized I should have probably left a note of some kind… It was probably rude to leave the books and not see him or leave a note at all. And then… I saw you and… I forgot about him completely."

She smiled a little proudly, a little indulgently. "Well… Who could blame you?" She teased.

"No one." I answered sincerely, and her teasing grin faded into a more relaxed smile. She took an exit, and within minutes was pulling up outside a home—not a community center. "…Are you picking them all up?"

She nodded. "We try to minimize the stress of being in this program for the foster parents—they're more likely to let the girls be involved if they aren't responsible for drop offs and pick- ups."

I nodded, wondering if she was going to honk or get out and go to the door, but neither happened. The front door swung open and a young girl of about twelve hurried out. She had light brown hair braided into pigtails. She was jeans that were only a little baggy, but torn strategically, and a small t-shirt bearing the words "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful, hate me because your boyfriend thinks I am." I smirked as she glanced at me warily and slid into the back seat.

"Hey Sara." Her voice was wary.

"Hi Jill. This is my friend, Gil."

The girl raised her eyebrows. "Like Gilbert?" Sara smirked and I grinned.

"You can call me Grissom if you like that better."

"Or Griss." Sara suggested, and Jill smiled.

"Griss…. Are you Sara's boyfriend?"

I glanced at her uncertainly, and she smiled too. "Let's say yes. It's… simpler."

Jill giggled. "When he's not around, you can tell us."

I looked back in concern at this statement, but she and Sara just laughed. I sighed. "Hey—maybe you should be sucking up a little more. I _am_ the cookie judge."

Her questions on how exactly I came to be cookie judge took all most of the way to the next girl's house—Alexis. She too, did not need Sara to come to the door or honk. She was ready as soon as she pulled up, and she too gave me a strange look as she moved towards the car. Her hair was styled in a way Catherine had informed me was called 'The Rachel' after some TV show, but I didn't know which. She was wearing an overlong gray sweatshirt over white leggings. The wide collar showed a collar and a dark blue tank top strap stuck out. This seemed as strategic as the torn jeans. …I really didn't spend enough time around kids, apparently.

She slid in next to Jill. "Hi guys…" She was just as wary of me. Sara smiled.

"Alexis, this is—"

"Griss." Jill offered, preempting the name conversation. Alexis glanced at her and both girls giggled. "He's Sara's kind-of-boyfriend-slash-last-minute-cookie-judge." …And then they were giggling again. I sighed. I had a feeling there would be a lot of that today.

The three of them chattered mostly without my input until we reached the home of girl number three—Kaitlin. Jill scooted over to take the hump when the girl with long, wavy blonde hair came out in a loose-fitted short-sleeved dress, black, that fell to mid-thigh, and knee-high sheer socks. She smiled and waved, but as with all the others, frowned when she saw me.

Come to think of it—these were women mentoring foster girls. It was entirely possible that I would be the only man at this cookie thing. That was intimidating. Kaitlin slid into the open space in the back seat.

"Does Sara have a boyfriend?" She teased, grinning, without preamble, and the blush rose to Sara's cheeks again. Maybe my words couldn't make her blush anymore, but other people talking about me clearly still could. It was reassuring.

"Kind of." Supplied Alexis, at the same time as Jill said, "It's simpler to just say that."

All three girls giggled and I wasn't sure whether to laugh along with them or groan. Sara might find all of this second-nature… but I had never been a twelve year old girl. I totally didn't get it.

Still—I had agreed, and if I was going to be a part of Sara's life long-term, that included the giggling trio in the backseat. ...I might as well get in touch with my inner pre-teen girl.


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Once again, my 90's references might be a little off. :) Sorry Jelly, although I might have been drunk in the 90's... my sister and her friend made Jello shots for homecoming and let me eat it rather than telling my mom what it really was. ...And then didn't tell my mom, until I was 18. ...Yeah.

Let me know what you think! I had to get in touch with _my_ inner pre-teen girl for this chapter. :)

* * *

We got out of Sara's car where the three of us were scrunched in the back seat. It was my week to ride up front, but that was okay—Sara totally needed a boyfriend. She'd been Jill, Alex, and I's mentor for almost a year, and she'd tell us about her dates, but they never seemed to be good enough for her. Alex said she was being unrealistic, Jill said she just knew what she wanted… and I said she must be in love with someone she wasn't dating. Sara had said it was some of all of that—she'd been in love, before, and he had more or less set the standard for what she wanted—and didn't want—in a guy.

That was the good thing about Sara, as opposed to the other mentors we'd had… she didn't talk down to us because we were younger. She knew exactly what it was like to be 'twelve-going-on-sixteen,' as she liked to say, and in foster care. It sucked. But she talked to use like we were friends, not kids she was stuck taking care of. And Griss—he must be a pretty good guy. He was wearing the shirt we'd made Sara—pink and girl power-y. That took balls.

Guts, I could hear Sara in my head. She didn't like it when we said 'balls.'

Although, if he hadn't been with Sara, I don't think I would have cared if he had guts or not—he was hot. Well, I mean, not like Jason Priestly or Leonardo DiCaprio, or any of the guys from Clueless (Jill and Alex and I had split them up between us), but in the old-man George Clooney/Mel Gibson kind of hot. The kind of guy you totally get why someone like Sara would like. I mean, he only had a little bit of gray hair, which made men look distinguished, as long as they still had all their hair, and he had a great smile—bright blue eyes… He was probably totally sexy twenty years ago. Okay, ten, whatever.

The three of us let Griss and Sara walk ahead of us, and though Sara glanced behind and raised an eyebrow, the giggles we couldn't control seemed to tell her we needed to girl-talk about this boyfriend development, so she took him inside to his cookie-tasting job, and we put some space between us, headed towards our kitchen. As soon as we thought they were too far away to hear us, Jill spoke up.

"He seems like Sara's type. She likes smart guys."

Alexis laughed. "Yeah, or _you_ like smart guys. He's hot though."

Alexis was right—Jill liked Josh from Clueless. Total nerd. …Even if it was a happy ending. And Alexis liked scruffy-looking guys—'manly men' she called them. That was her excuse for not totally hating Elton. Ugh. I liked Christian—I mean, he probably wasn't gay in real life.

"In that old-man kind of way…"

Jill frowned. "He's not that old. …Do you see the way Sara looks at him? …I think he's the guy she was in love with."

"No. Way." Alexis stated emphatically, shaking her head to get her bangs out of her face. "Really?"

"Well," I jump in, pulling a butterfly clip out of my purse to pin back my long hair, "I mean—she never told us about him, did she? He just appeared. And if there's one thing Sara tells us about, its guys. So where did he come from? Why is he her boyfriend if they just met?"

"They didn't." Jill said triumphantly, passing us each an apron from the drawer. "It doesn't make sense—she went out with that stalker Jeff two weeks ago, and then he called and called her. And she didn't have a date last Friday—she said she was working all night."

"Maybe she was 'working' with Griss all night…" Alexis suggested and we all giggled. I mean, none of us really know more than the basic mechanics of sex—piece A into slot B, repeat—but we knew everything was funnier with some innuendo. Sara had taken us to Chinese and taught us to add '…in bed' to the end of all our fortunes… and they were way funnier that way. …Even if we weren't always sure what it meant.

"Well, we're totally gonna win—I mean, he has to pick his girlfriend's group, doesn't he?"

"Or he may not pick us," Jill offered, "even if ours are the best, just because he doesn't want to look biased."

We all frowned, sliding up to sit on the counter top—Sara liked to get places early, which meant more sitting around than was necessary most of the time. After a short silence, Alexis was serious—something she rarely was.

"…Do you think he loves Sara too? Or is he gonna break her heart again?"

"Again?" I heard myself asking, and she and Jill glanced at each other.

"Well… I mean, if she was in love with him before, and they separated… and she never got over him, because she couldn't fall for anyone else—even that super hot one… What was his name?"

"Jordan." I supplied, too quickly, because they looked at me and then laughed.

Alexis continued, "Right—she didn't want hot Jordan, but old-hot Griss comes along and she'd inviting him to be a cookie judge and smiling too much."

"Yeah," says Jill, "and remember she said we never got to meet her dates because they were losers and she didn't want us to meet anyone who couldn't make it to a third date? There's no way they're on a third date, but we met him… I totally think he broke her heart."

I grit my teeth, glancing at Sara, who did look like she was looking at him with a rather lovesick expression. "Well, we'll just have to make sure he's not going to hurt her again. Sara deserves better than that."

We all looked at each other—my green eyes, Jill's blue, and Alex's brown—and decided in a moment. There was no way we were letting him date our Sara without a thorough interrogation.

* * *

I was right to be intimidated. Though Sara's three broke off from us almost as soon as we got out of the car, the center was crawling with women, and we were early. …Not that I mind women, don't get me wrong—but to be the only man is difficult. She led me up to a group of women, through a throng of girls, and introduced.

"Ladies—I give you Gil Grissom, cookie-taster extraordinaire."

They exchanged knowing glances, but at least they didn't giggle. I shook five hands, took in five names I would probably never remember, and was guided over to a table with a pile of forms. Oh god—I couldn't just say 'This cookie wins,' I actually had to say pros and cons for each batch. I mean, really, it wasn't that much work… it just seemed over the top.

And Sara's smirk told me she knew it was over the top, and enjoyed that I was doing it.

After another ten minutes, the women drifted away to their separate kitchenettes and Sara passed me a newspaper before she went to join her girls, since I would have nothing to do until the cookies were finished. She glanced around and then leaned in a kissed me quickly. "Thank you, Gil. …This means the world to me."

…On second thought, the forms really weren't _that_ over the top. I mean, it was important to know why a judge had picked a winner, right? Sara could have asked me to write a paper on each batch of cookies I judged, and if she kissed me and thanked me with that look in her eyes, I would happily agree.

She left, and I assumed that I would probably be very bored for the next half hour. …I was wrong. The first person to approach me was Alexis—the girl in the long sweatshirt and leggings. She moved up to my table, looking nervous, and even glanced behind herself once or twice, though my table was out of the sightline of the kitchen she and Sara and the other girls were at. She crossed her arms across her chest.

"…Hi Alexis." I greeted her. It was clear she wanted something, but I just didn't know what. I mean—I'm a thirty nine year old man, a bachelor, with no children. Talking to twelve year old girls is a stretch for me.

"Hi… Griss. Do you… How long have you known Sara?"

I blinked and glanced behind her, hoping to find Sara's eyes miraculously locked with mine, telling me how much she wanted the girls to know. Of course, they were absent—and I decided that lying was not a good option. The truth wasn't necessarily a perfect option either, but…

"I met her in 1988." There. Truthful, but not revealing. The girl frowned, leaning her weight to one side so that her hip stuck out with just the right amount of attitude.

"And you two dated?"

I raised my eyebrows. I didn't think Sara had told them about me, but I didn't know. "I… Yes, for a while."

"Why'd you break up?"

I pursed my lips. "I… Does Sara know you're asking this?"

She frowned. "No, but Sara doesn't lie to us—about anything. If I asked her, she'd tell me."

"…Why aren't you asking her, then?"

"Did you break her heart?"

I blink in surprise, my mouth falling open. The girl's brown eyes are level—demanding. I sigh.

"Yes."

Her eyebrows raise—she didn't expect honesty. "And… now you're back."

"I am."

"…For how long?"

I hesitated again. "Two weeks, for sure… Longer, if… if she'll have me."

"Have you changed?"

"Excuse me?"

She shrugged. "Whatever you did that broke her heart—Have you changed, or would you do it again?"

I felt a smile tugging on my lips, understanding dawning. "I would never, ever do it again."

She appraised me for a long moment. "…Okay." She turned and headed back to her kitchenette, and I was left behind, uncertain whether to laugh or not.

I returned to my paper, but moments later there was someone else at my table—a girl I didn't know, who seemed older than Sara's girls by at least a few years. Fourteen or fifteen, maybe.

"Hi." She said, and if I didn't know better, I would have thought she was flirting with me. Her tone was flirtatious. I set down my crossword.

"…Hi. ...What's… your name?"

"Don't do that." I blinked in surprise, looking at the girl in detail for the first time—she had curly red hair and was clad in tight jeans and a low-cut shirt. And her smile was flirtatious. It wasn't just in my head. I frowned.

"Don't do what?"

"Talk to me like I'm one of the twelve year olds you're indulging. I'm an adult."

I raised an eyebrow. "An adult in foster care?" Maybe I'd been wrong about her age—she was rather curvy, for fifteen.

"Well, maybe not by law… but physically, I am. For generations people got married way younger than me… and in half the states, I'd meet the age of consent."

I nearly laughed. Good lord, was this girl coming on to me? …The last time I'd heard those words had been in a very similar situation—except I still loved that woman. It wasn't about the age, it was _her._

"…Okay. I won't talk you like a child. I'll talk to you like a woman." She beamed. I raised an eyebrow. "Can I help you with something?" She frowned, and I nearly laughed again. "Well, if a _woman_ came up to me in this manner… I would be rather inclined to know what she wanted.

"I want you." Okay, I did laugh that time. But I covered it up with a cough. She seemed to think she'd flustered me, and smiled, moving closer. I swallowed, tears in my eyes from the hacking.

"Age of consent in California is eighteen." There. That was… polite. Wasn't it? It had been years since I'd refused a teenage girl—and I'd never had the opportunity to refuse one who I actually wanted to stop. I had told Sara stop, but I'd wanted her to continue.

She frowned. "My mentor said you're from Vegas. …It's sixteen, there, isn't it? …Why don't you take me to Vegas?" She fluttered her eyelashes and I felt a surge of sympathy. How bad was her life here that she would solicit a nearly forty year old man just to escape? I frowned.

"What's your name, dear?" I said it in as fatherly a way as I could, and she noticed. She drew her eyebrows together.

"Kayla."

"Kayla… Listen to me. Even if I could take you to Vegas—even if that wouldn't be kidnapping, taking a minor across state lines, and a myriad of other charges—I wouldn't. I'm in love with someone else and she means more to me than… anything. But… if you need to talk… if things aren't okay where you're at, you can tell me, and I'll see what I can do to help."

She scoffed and turned on her heel, heading away from me, but I swore there were tears in her eyes. I wrote K-A-Y-L-A on my newspaper in the margin so I wouldn't forget. I wanted to talk to Sara about looking into her living situation.

Now, between these two interactions, you would think that would be all I had to endure in a day. Gratuitous excuse to eat cookies aside, it had been a little trying. But no—the blonde girl of Sara's was coming over next. As I saw her approaching, I groaned inwardly and set my crossword aside, not even attempting to pretend I hadn't noticed or didn't know what she wanted. Sara's girls had obviously conspired to make sure that I didn't hurt Sara again, and pretending otherwise would get me nowhere.

I met her eyes and leaned back in the uncomfortable chair, waiting.


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

A/N: For those who wanted more of this, here you are. :)

For those who didn't like 'those meddling kids,' we're pretty much done with the cookie thing, at least. I mean, mostly... :)

* * *

"Kaitlin." I greeted her warily, expecting the worst after the two who had come before her. She grabbed a spare chair and pulled it up to sit across from me—whether because she thought this put us on a certain level of equality or simply because she was wearing a dress and didn't want to lean over the table to talk to me, I didn't know.

"Griss." I smirked—every time one of the girls used my abbreviated last name I heard Sara saying it in my head. It was nice.

"I assume you're here to warn me not to hurt Sara?"

She put her hands on the table in front of us. "More or less. Alexis said you said you broke her heart, way back when." I nod, and she frowns. "…Why? Sara… is amazing."

I smiled—Sara _was_ amazing, and the love shining in this girl's eyes made that even more abundantly clear. "It was… because she's so amazing. I thought that sooner or later she would find someone younger, better looking… and then I'd be alone."

She watched me for a moment, her short nails snapping against the table. "That's stupid."

I laughed. "You're right. It's really stupid. Biggest mistake of my life—and I've made my share."

"Do you love her?"

I watched her for a long moment. "Yes. More than anything."

She watched me for a long moment. "She could have anyone she wanted, you know. We were rooting for this guy about a month ago… hot-Jordan. He was an astrophysicist. Looked like superman, you know, as Clark Kent? This crazy hot, super muscled man with a pair of glasses that don't hide his sexiness, just make him look smarter."

Oh good. I did like to hear things like that. I frowned. "Why didn't she stay with him?"

She looked at me like she wasn't certain she should tell me—but I'd been honest with them. She twisted her lips. "She said he was horrible in bed."

For one terrible fraction of a second I believed her… and then I came to my senses. "…If you're going to lie to me, why shouldn't I lie to you?"

She huffed. "She said he tried to tell her something… he was wrong, but he kept insisting that she was. She tried to drop it, 'cause it was the first date, but he just wouldn't."

"…What was it?"

She shrugged, tapping her nails again. "I dunno—something about maggots on dead bodies. Sara likes gross stuff like that. Apparently they went to a movie and she pointed out a mistake, and he said it wasn't a mistake and… Well, you know. Sara said that he needed to either be right or be humble, but he was neither so she wasn't interested."

I beamed, confident that Sara had been right and that my superman competitor wouldn't be a threat. Not that all the other guys wouldn't be… She stood up and looked me in the eye. "We'll let you know if you pass."

"If I pass?"

"Yeah," she said matter of factly, "Sara wouldn't date you if we hated you… We're deciding if we approve. Don't worry though, we already think you're pretty cute for an old guy." She turned to walk away, but I stopped her.

"Kaitlin?" She turned back again. "Listen… Don't… tell Sara that I said I love her."

"Why?" She frowned.

I sighed. "I… We haven't said it, again, since we've been back together. I want… the first time she hears it, again, to be special… from me."

She watched me, and then nodded slowly. "Okay… We won't. But… Don't be stupid again."

I smiled and nodded. "I'll try…"

As the smell of baking cookies filled the air, I sighed in relief. At least we were almost done—I'd eat some cookies, sit with Sara through some silly kids movie, we'd take the girls home, and I could see if she wanted to get something real to eat… maybe we could take in our own movie. Something just the two of us. But no—someone else was approaching my table.

She was an older woman, closer to my age than Sara's, with light brown hair just past her shoulders. She took the chair that Kaitlin had abandoned. I set my newspaper aside once again. "Hello."

She smiled. "Hello. I'm Leah Mason. …Looks like you're pretty popular today."

I smiled too, a little uncertainly. I didn't know this woman—I was certain she hadn't been in the group Sara introduced me to. "I am—I've got a way with kids, I guess." I said, knowing full well that my interactions with the girls had been anything but a result of my nurturing nature.

She laughed, too loudly. My joke was hardly a joke at all—certainly not something that deserved a whole-hearted laugh. I raised an eyebrow. "The word on the grapevine tells me you're from Vegas."

"I am." I said, noncommittally. Another smile—why?

"That sounds so exciting. How long will you be in town?"

"…Two weeks, is the plan, right now."

"Well, maybe before you leave, we could grab some dinner; I find the whole field of forensics terribly interesting…"

It took everything in me not to groan aloud. "I, uh… I don't think so. Sara—"

"—is telling everyone that you're not her boyfriend." She offered, with too much of a smile on lips that were trying to seem concerned. I frowned.

"…She said that, exactly?"

"She said you guys haven't talked about it. And when anyone asks if its serious, she says she doesn't know. …That doesn't sound like commitment, to me."

I gave her a half smile. "Thank you, very much, for the invitation, but I can't do dinner."

She stood up, but instead of walking away, she leaned in closer. "…Maybe we could just skip the dinner… jump right to the end of the night."

My eyes snapped up to hers and she gave me a smile that made me feel uncomfortable—ogled. I shuddered as soon as her back turned to me. She walked away in what I'm certain she found to be an enticing sway, and I looked away, feeling slightly queasy. …Wasn't anyone done with their damn cookies yet?

* * *

Alexis had returned and the three of us had gathered around the bowl to stir while Sara shot us suspicious glances, but didn't interrupt. She was like that—didn't force herself on you. She knew how important it was to let you talk when you were ready. So we knew we' d have a minute—and what Alexis told us was troubling. She said he'd told her right out that he'd broken Sara's heart, but that he said he had changed—he wasn't going to do whatever it was, again. And he was only around for two weeks for sure… but he said he'd stay longer, if Sara wanted him to.

"He sounds sincere…" Alexis finished in a whisper, stirring the already well-stirred batter.

I glanced at Sara. "But is he in love with her?"

Kaitlin bit her bottom lip and moved the cookie sheets over, passing us each a spoon to scoop batter out for the cookies. "…Do we know why they broke up? I mean, besides that he broke her heart? What did he do? Why would he hurt her?"

Alexis sighed. "I… don't know. He's nice, so… I felt mean asking him questions. Besides… I believed him. He isn't going to do it again…"

Kaitlin sighed, tearing off her apron and dropping her spoon into the bowl. "Not good enough. I'm gonna go see why they broke up—and if he's in love with her." And with a sweep of her long hair, she was gone. Kaitlin was like that—a little bossy, a little dramatic. Alexis was the same type of personality… She liked to say things to get a reaction, although she wasn't as confident as Kaitlin. I was more like Sara—we rarely got time with her alone, but on those occasions, Sara would put her arm around me and tell me she knew how hard it was to be surrounded by social butterflies.

Don't get me wrong—I love Kait and Alex—but they're not kindred spirits. They'd rather tease me for the books I read than talk about them… and Sara, she loves to read too. She says she was always quiet too—except when she was mad. I couldn't imagine her mad. I liked to think that when I was grown up I'd be just like Sara. …I told her I wanted to graduate early, like she had, and go to the best school that would have me… maybe Berkeley, so I could still see her.

She had hugged me, and had somehow understood that this was not something I had shared with the other two because she spoke softly, telling me not to rush my childhood the way she had… I had really good foster parents, and friends… I had a lot going for me, she told me, and that if she'd been in such a good position, she never would have gone to college so early. I didn't know if this was really true—I think she still would have, but that she didn't think it was a good idea in retrospect. I didn't know why, but I had nodded and hugged her back. Sara understood me, and she was smart. If she didn't think it was a good idea, I supposed I could stick it out… maybe take in a prom or two.

She came over to us when Kaitlin had been gone over a minute, right as we were putting our cookies in the oven. "Alright guys, where's Kait?"

"Bathroom," both Alexis and I said together, which was terribly suspicious. Sara frowned.

"...Okay, you're not going to tell me, I get it. …Just… reassure me that there's nothing to worry about? I'm not wrong to trust you guys, right now, am I?"

I bit my lip, but Alexis said, "Nope!" Sara glanced between us, and her eyes rested on me.

"We're not… getting into trouble."

She nodded slowly, and then smiled. "Okay. Now, how long are we supposed to cook these for…?"

"Mmm, fifteen minutes?" Alexis said, looking down at our recipe. Sara smiled.

"Alright. I've got a plan to get us in the top three, if not number one… but I need to know I can trust you guys alone for fifteen minutes. You promise you're not doing anything I should worry about?"

"Promise." We chorused together, and she smiled.

"Great! Keep an eye on those cookies and I'll be back as soon as I can. And when Kait comes back, keep her here."

She hurried off, and Alexis and I exchanged a curious look, but got busy with dishes—not because we were so eager to clean, but because we needed to look busy so no one would ask where Sara was. Technically, she wasn't supposed to leave us unattended, but Sara was great about letting you know she trusted you. And when she did, the last thing you wanted to do was disappoint her.

Kaitlin was back moments later—she might have even passed Sara on the way. I was going to ask her, but she didn't even take a breath between stepping back into our area and starting. "He said he loves her!"

We all squealed and jumped up and down happily, but I frowned after a minute. "…I feel like there's a 'but' coming…"

Alexis snorted, but Kaitlin nodded. "We're not allowed to tell her—he says it isn't because he's being stupid again, just because he wants it to be special when he tells her again. I'm suspicious though. I told him that he has to have our approval or Sara wouldn't date him."

Alexis raised an eyebrow. "Why'd you tell him that? If Sara loves him, she'll date him either way…"

"No," Kait asserted. "Not if we hated him… or we had a good reason why she shouldn't."

They both turned to me, waiting to see which side I would take. I sighed. "If he hurt one of us or… if he was really mean, she might not date him. But not just because we didn't like him. …If we told her why we didn't think she could, she'd probably listen and take it into account but… she would make the decision."

They both huffed because I hadn't agreed with either of them. Kaitlin glanced around. "Where was Sara going?"

We both shrugged. "Dunno—she said she thought of a way to make sure we win. She said she'd be back by the time the cookies were done."

She nodded, and I tilted my head. "Why did he say he broke her heart?"

Kaitlin rolled her eyes. "He said it was because she was so amazing—he was afraid she'd find someone better and leave him all alone. …So I told him about hot-Jordan. If he runs in the next few days, we know he hasn't changed, and then at least he's gone before Sara's in too deep."

"Kait," I started, my eyebrows raised. "…Are you sure that was right?"

She shrugged. "I told him Sara didn't want him because of that maggot thing, so he knows he's not _really_ a threat…"

The timer went off and we jumped, hurrying to pull our cookies out and glancing around for Sara. I looked over at Griss, thinking maybe she'd stopped to talk to him, hoping he wasn't telling on us—but no, he was talking to some old lady mentor who was leaning in close and speaking softly, and laughing and smiling too much. I frowned, but went back to helping.

By the time we'd removed the cookies from the pan, onto wax paper, she was at our sides, pulling a scissors out of her jeans pocket and quickly cutting. "I got bug shapes. We'll cut the cookies into them—like make shift cookie cutters."

Alexis laughed. "What, he likes bugs or something?"

Sara laughed—"He's an entomologist, kiddo. He _loves_ them."

We spent the next ten minutes cutting out the pictures and placing them over cookies, selecting the best-cut ones and placing them onto the plate with the number taped to the front of it, so our judge couldn't know whose cookies were whose. I wondered whether Sara had made the cookies into bugs so that he would know they were ours, or if she thought that just being bugs, no matter who had made them, would make him pick them. She had defended herself while we cut, saying she'd told every other mentor there that he was an entomologist. We didn't have any advantages. I wasn't so sure, but Sara winked at me, and that was enough. …Sara wouldn't cheat.

But when we were finished, and Alex and Kait were doing dishes, and Sara was delivering our numbered plate to the table of cookies to be judged, I removed the apron and headed over to Griss' table. He had put his paper away and was shuffling through papers before him. The conversation would be less private than the others had probably had, since people were finishing their cookies, but it couldn't wait and I didn't know if I'd get another chance.

I sat in the chair that the old lady had sat in. He smiled. "Hello, Jill. I figured I'd be seeing you sooner or later."

I offered an awkward smile. "Listen… I'm not here to question you or… whatever Kait and Alex did. I just… Sara's everything I ever wanted to be, and more. She's like the big sister I never had and… and she gets me. And I know that you're not going to do anything differently just because some dumb twelve year olds threaten you, but… Sara is just so…. wonderful. I… don't know where I'd be if it wasn't for her. So… I just wanted to say that… that if you don't see that in her, then maybe you should go be with the old lady who was hitting on you, instead. Because Sara really likes you… I mean, she doesn't look at most people the way she looks at you, and… and I just think that you should deserve it. And if you don't know how perfect she is… if you like having women flirt with you, even harmlessly… then you don't deserve it."

I gave him a half smile, shrugged, and hurried back to the kitchen area. Kaitlin and Alexis hadn't noticed my absence, but Sara had. She raised an eyebrow and I shrugged, so she offered a smile instead. Like I said, Sara just understood me.


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: :) So this is the end of the girls for a little while. Some will be happy, others will be sad--but don't worry, we'll see them again.

Let me know what you think!

* * *

When there were about ten plates ready to be judged, I started heading over to the table where they were being kept on numbered plates—for a small time cookie contest they were very concerning with cheating—and took them one at a time, eating a single cookie and rating it on goodness. I mean, there were a few easy ones that were either horrible or amazing, and I think I consumed nearly a gallon of milk in between cookies, but most were just about average. It was easy to narrow it down to five that were amazing, but not to big among them.

There was one plate in particular—all the cookies had been cut into little beetle and butterfly shapes. When I'd first come here, had someone handed me bug-shaped cookies, I would have said unequivocally that they were from Sara's group. But considering the… attention… I'd gotten from some of the other women here, I was no longer certain. …They were really good cookies though.

I ended up picking a regular old circular batch at the winner, and was left with the bug cookies and another set that tasted pretty much exactly the same. I gave second place to the bugs, because whether they were from Sara or one of my newfound admirers or from someone else entirely who just knew I was an entomologist and really wanted to win… I really liked them. I mean, silly as it sounds, I got excited to eat them… which is saying something, when you've tried as many cookies as I had. Ugh. The only thing that would have made them better was replacing the chocolate chips with chocolate covered ants.

But that might be expecting a bit much.

I was finished judging before everyone had finished cleaning up their kitchen stations, but Sara and her girls were clearly done, their kitchen empty, so I asked one of the women Sara had introduced me to and she directed me down the hall to the auditorium where everyone was setting up for the movie. And then I saw Sara about half-way down, next to the empty aisle seat, the three girls to her left. When I moved closer, I saw that she had her right arm extended over the top of the chair, saving it for me.

I felt a sense of relief slide through me. Sara saving me a seat… wanting me to be near… was worth any amount of propositions from strangers and pre-teen interrogations. I came level with her row. "Is this seat taken?"

She jumped at my voice and then smiled, moving her hand. "Hi. I was wondering when you'd be done. Cookie?" She offered me, having two wrapped in a napkin in her lap.

I frowned, turning away from even the smell of the cookie. "No… I've had enough to last me a lifetime."

She chuckled and set the cookies back on her thigh, leaning her head towards me. "Thanks again, for doing this. I know you probably had better things to do…"

I shook my head slowly. "No, I didn't. Although… I need to talk to you, once we leave. …Don't let me forget, okay?"

She frowned a little. "What is it?"

He glanced around, not seeing the red-headed teenager or the unwanted solicitor, but feeling nervous regardless. "I, uh… I'll just tell you after we drop the girls off."

"…Did they do something? If they did Gil, you need to tell me and I'll talk to them. They need to know what is and isn't acceptable behavior."

I raised my eyebrows, but shook my head. "No, honey, they didn't do anything wrong. I promise, we'll talk, okay?"

"….Okay…"

She hardly finished speaking when a woman was up in front, quieting everyone and pulling down the big screen used for slide shows and presentations from visiting teachers and motivational speakers who used the center. "Alright… the last group has finished cleaning up and everyone should be in here… Any mentors missing?"

Sara glanced around at these words, and seemed to be counting adults, and then shook her head slightly. I smiled—she just couldn't help being involved when someone was speaking… put anyone in the front of a lecture hall, and Sara would become enthralled. The woman waited and then smiled. "And mentors, you've got all your kids, right?"

There was a collective nodding and mhmm-ing and then woman smiled. "Wonderful. Then we'll just have our guest-cookie-judge come up here and tell us his winners, and then we'll start the movie!"

I took that as my cue, heading up to the front and clearly my throat a little awkwardly. I could speak in court or lecture college students, no problem, but tell me to read the results of a cookie-baking contest to a bunch of teenage girls and I clam up. "The third place winner…. was plate number…" I glanced down at my list. "Seven!"

A group of girls in the back—about fourteen, I would guess—screamed and cheered and I chuckled to myself through the applause. No wonder Sara enjoyed this… happiness came so easy, here. "The third place winner was… thirteen!" The screaming and cheering came again, this time from Sara's group. I beamed. She had done the bug-cookies.

"And the first place winner of The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie Baking Contest Extravaganza…." The room giggled and I smiled too, feeling lighter. Maybe girls weren't so intimidating after all. "Number four!" A group right in front actually leapt to their feet to cheer and give each other high-fives. They were probably the same age as Sara's group. I smiled, took a mock bow which earned me more laughter, and moved off the stage back to Sara's side as the projector was being turned on.

"So… what do the winners get, for this?" Sara smiled and slid her hand into mine as the lights turned off, making me feel very much like I was a seventh grader on his first date again.

"Oh, pride mostly. The first place winners get to pick what we do next week, and the runners up is… yeah, it's a pride thing. We can get rather competitive…."

I smiled and squeezed her hand. "You made me bug cookies…"

She grinned and squeezed back.

____________

My girls were up to something. I didn't know what—but the only time I'd seen Gil today, he'd looked uncomfortable… and they kept disappearing, one by one. I hoped that they were only harassing Gil—I mean, not that that's a good thing, but… with almost-teenage girls, it was better than a lot of the alternatives. Besides, if he couldn't live through three twelve year olds, he was going to have a hard time being in my life—they were a permanent fixture.

Jill was the one I was more worried about—she looked troubled… upset… she kept gnawing on her lips, an unconscious habit that always let me know that something was weighing on her mind. But she usually could be counted on to tell the truth and let me know if something too worrying was going on, so I tried to put it from my mind. I'd drop Jill off last, and kick Gil out of the car for a minute if I had to.

I knew he'd understand and, if I was wrong and he didn't… Well, then we would have a bigger problem than his hurt feelings.

I ushered them all into the auditorium and found a row of five available seats, draping my arm over the one to my right, listening to the chatter around me. My girls were arguing—for about the millionth time—the merits of the guys in 'Clueless,' a rather vain and shallow movie about teenage girls growing up in Beverly Hills. Jill had disliked the movie as much as I had and felt kind of out-of-the-loop when Alexis and Kaitlin started going on about it… so I bought her a copy of Jane Austen's _Emma_, the novel from which the movie was loosely adapted.

She fell in love with Mr. Knightly, and therefore 'Josh' in the movie… and then she didn't feel so out of touch with them. They teased her that she only liked it because of a book, at first, but that was hardly something that Jill would be embarrassed of, so it worked itself out.

Gil sat down briefly, seeming tired, and telling me suspiciously that we needed to talk. The way he looked around the room made me think it was about someone here, but he insisted that it hadn't been Jill or Kait or Alex… so I relented. If he said it could wait, it could wait.

Gil hurried up, when announced, to pick the winners of the cookie contest and I watched him go from uncomfortable to quirky and funny within minutes—he really liked how happy he'd made the girls who were cheering, and he looked especially pleased to discover that we were his second place pick. I think he was more excited that we were the bug cookie makers, but still… it was a nice moment. And then he was back beside me, warm and solid and comfortably close, making me feel safe.

While the few days that he'd been in town had been… exciting and romantic and fun… and certainly emotional… I felt closer to him, in this moment, than I had the previous night in bed or even dancing in the surf. He clearly had not been in his element today, though he'd risen to the occasion for my sake, endured who knew what from my girls and the piles of cookies he'd had to consume, and had even seemed to come out of his shell a little… letting them see the silly, funny, eccentric man I loved.

…I mean, that… that I _had_ fallen in love with… you know, a long time ago. …Past tense.

It was nearing noon when the movie ended and we all headed out, piling back into my car. The girls were talking about the guys in this movie now—though I couldn't for the life of me remember anything from the movie. Usually, when I watched with them, I could pick out the parts that each girl would really enjoy and if there was a heartthrob, I knew exactly who would be struck with him.

Alexis liked the bad boys—whether they were rough and tough or just not very nice. …I found this worrying, of course, but then it's a fairly common thing for girls to find that attractive in a guy. As long as it didn't translate into dating a drug dealer in a few years, I figured it was okay. Kaitlin, of course, only went for the most attractive guys… to the point of them looking… pretty. And preppy. Which made me want to gag but then, my high school experiences would obviously be different than hers. Jill, of course, was like me… she liked the smart, funny guy who was a little off… just enough to have it be endearing.

I realized, as we were driving, that I hadn't fed the girls. And though it wasn't even noon—the point of the early morning being that we get them home in time for lunch—I figured there was no guarantee that there'd be a meal made at home. I had made certain that the girls who were under my care had decent foster homes. Kaitlin's had been a little rough, for a while, but after I'd talked to Jodie about the sheer number of kids that were in the home, it seemed like things got better. Foster parents are people too—they can't handle ten kids any more than a regular parent can. Still though, I didn't want them getting stuck with cold, lunchmeat sandwiches every Saturday either, just because of the program.

So I inquired as to the hunger level of my car mates and swung through the drive through of one of my favorite restaurants—the girls teased me about it being hippie food because their vegetarian menu was larger than the meat-included menu and everything was organic, free-range, and locally grown. Gil was uncertain, and I had to direct him to the smaller sign containing the meat options—and then I placed the order for two wraps, two sandwiches, and a pita.

The girls ate on the ride while Gil held his sandwich and my pita in his lap and by the time I'd pulled up outside Kaitlin's home she had finished eating. She piled her trash into a garbage bag in the back seat, hugged me over the headrest of my seat, and called bye to all of us—'Griss' included. Alexis was next and gave me the same hug… she said bye to us as a group, rather than singling us out, which I thought was perhaps because she didn't want to say goodbye to Gil separately, but also didn't want to be rude. Which left Jill.

I pulled up to the street, rather than her driveway, and she and Gil both glanced at me in the question. "Gil… Do you think… you could step outside, just for a minute?"

His eyebrows raised in surprise, but he nodded and got out without another word, leaving the bag of our food on the seat. As soon as the door closed, I turned in my seat to catch Jill's eyes. She was looking determinedly away. "Hey… Jilly, hon, what's wrong? You haven't been yourself today…"

She shrugged, and I watched her, knowing that she had the same tendency to overtalk when confronted by uncomfortable silences. In a moment, she sighed, giving in. "It's nothing, I just… Well, we… just…" She gnawed on her bottom lip and looked up at me. "We're worried that he's going to hurt you. We see the way you look at him and… Sara, Ms. Mason was practically sitting in his lap, earlier. I just… I don't like it."

I laughed—Leah was known to be… a little flirtatious, so I didn't doubt her words. "Honey, really… Gil and I aren't very serious yet. I'm not going to get hurt…."

She frowned. "But he broke your heart once before… and if you're not serious, then why did you let us meet him? You don't ever let us meet your guys, even when you date them for several months…"

I watched her—she looked so upset. I sighed. "I… don't know how you know that he broke my heart, but… You're right. Even though we've just reconnected and haven't really talked… we are more serious than I'm letting on. It's… basically that he lives in Vegas. And we need to use this time to determine if it's going anywhere and what we're going to do about it if it is. …But Jill, hon… sometimes you know that you should be with someone simply because you know they _could_ break your heart if they wanted to. I mean… Why would you want to be with someone who you don't feel very strongly about at all?"

She nodded, slowly, and I leaned over the seat to give her a tight hug. "I'll be okay… I promise."

"Okay…" She whispered against me, and then let herself out, hurrying up to her home while Gil slid back into the front seat.

"…Everything okay?" I smiled and looked over at him, taking in his appearance for the first time in hours—he had curled sticking out of the hole from his backwards baseball cap and though his eyes looked tired, he was smiling. I might be a little apprehensive about all of this… but why would I want to be with someone who didn't make me feel a little nervous?

"…Yeah. …Everything's great."

He gave me an uncertain smile and I leaned over and kissed him softly, seeking to reassure him and cement the closeness that I was feeling between us in this moment. I don't remember winding my fingers into his curls or sliding my free hand along his jaw anymore than I remember his hands cupping my face and reaching around my back to tug me closer, respectively. I just know that one minute the kiss was gentle and toying… and the next it had me longing to climb across the car and into his lap.

I broke from him, breathless, and for a moment we both panted and stared… and then I leaned back into my seat, shifted into drive, and pulled back onto the street quickly. We needed to get home, fast.


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: So I tried to post this last night, but ff wouldn't let me sign in, and I was going to this morning before work at 6:15, but I didn't wake up until 6:30 because the power was out. :( Aaand, this will be the only update until tonight or tomorrow, because I have a test on the Victorian Era this afternoon that I'm about to go study for. :)

Oh, and for the record, I'm only a little bit of a tease. Originally I wrote this chapter where it cut off right before anything happened, and then I thought that was mean, so I changed a few things and rewrote it. ...Just so you know. :P

* * *

Sara kissed me, and though it was light and soft, I couldn't leave it. I had spent the entire day away from her, defending my right to be close to her and warding off the advances of the broken and the disillusioned alike, immersing myself in her world… and all I wanted to do after that was feel her close—real and solid and unmistakably present. I felt an entirely male longing to prove that I did deserve her, despite what Jill had said. I felt like a peacock fluffing up his feathers—not to attract a mate, but to show the mate that she had not chosen poorly.

That astrophysicist supermen were not more deserving, despite being neither accurate nor modest when it came to maggots.

My arm moved around her back, pulling her closer and her hand moved to my jaw, stroking slowly, despite the feverish tone the kiss had taken. I ran my tongue along the crease between her lips and caught her face in my free hand to hold it still as I pressed her lips apart and teased her tongue with mine.

She moaned against me and her hands wrapped into my curls—a sure sign that she was aroused… she had always, always held on to me there when we were intimate. I was seconds away from taking her by the hips and pulled her into my lap, despite being parked outside her mentee's home in broad daylight, when she pulled almost forcefully from the kiss, leaving both of us breathing raggedly.

She met my eyes and then we were flying out of the parking space and back onto the interstate—and I knew from the flush in her cheeks and the heavy breathing still puffing through her lips that this was not over. She was not parting to end the interaction, but to hasten it—find a place where we might consummate our renewed relationship without worrying about public indecency.

I glanced down at the bag on my lap, containing our food—but it would keep for an hour or so… we could microwave them. I turned back to her, lifting my left arm to rest on the back of her seat, my fingertips trailing over her neck and shoulder, eliciting shivers and goose bumps down her arms that had me positively aching for her. She still reacted just as strongly to me as she had as a young girl… and it felt amazing. Because she was still a very young woman. I didn't feel like I ought to be any more attractive to her now as I had been then—if anything, I should have been more so before. …But the fire in her eyes told me otherwise.

She wanted me, as badly as I wanted her, and the knowledge had my heart racing even though she wasn't touching me. My breathing was coming quicker, and I struggled to control my thoughts—or else I'd be far too close, far too soon. Somehow, the drive to her home took much longer than the drive away from it had been, but we arrived, finally, and I was jumping out of the car, sandwich bag in hand, hurrying around to take her hand and drag her inside. She was laughing, though she stopped when I pushed her against her door just a little roughly, the way I knew she liked—almost as much as my 'teacher voice'—and kissed her with everything I had.

The laughter melted into a hum in the back of her throat and she was digging frantically for her keys when I slipped a leg between her thighs, pressing just enough to elicit another moan before removing it and pulling back. Her head fell back to the door in desperation and she breathed out a low-pitched groan of frustration. I smiled. "…Something wrong, Sara?"

Her lips twitched into a smile and she stood up fully, turning to unlock her door. "Oh, you are going to get it, Gil Grissom…"

The door fell open and we stepped inside to be greeted by a whimpering, dancing Hank. I groaned. "He probably needs to go out…"

Sara smirked. "He needs a walk too." She stooped to pick up his leash and hook it onto his collar. She held it out to me with an expression of delighted amusement on all her features. "I, uh… I'll be waiting…" Her voice came deep and throaty and left me gasping for air. My eyes swept down her body, taking in the curve of her hips—the hint of erect nipples through her shirt, the mussed look of her hair from my attentions. She looked… pleasantly fuckable.

I took the leash a little more aggressively than necessary. "C'mon boy, we're running around the block…"

She tsked and shook her head. "Gil… he's been stuck in this condo since yesterday afternoon with the exception of bathroom breaks. …He needs a real walk."

I practically whimpered. "…But…"

She smirked again. "…I guess that's what you get for teasing. I'll see you in twenty minutes… if I'm still in the mood." She winked at me and slipped her shoes off, walking off to her bedroom with a positively alluring sway to her hips. I considered for a long minute complying—hadn't I told her that she was in charge now? But no—we'd decided just this morning that we were approaching this relationship as equals. I held the door open and silently Hank ran out, did his business, and hurried back inside. I removed his leash and headed back to the bedroom. There was no way I was walking the damned dog.

----

I was feeling pretty damned proud of myself for that little power play. …Because as crazy as it sounded, considering our past with control issues, the vying for power was crazy hot. When he'd pressed me up against the door, I would have let him take me then and there, despite the other doorways that opened into the same open walkway as mine did—and when he pulled away, teasing… it was even hotter to make him wait. To think of him suffering through a long walk, wondering if I'd still want him when he came back.

I felt confident as I walked away from him—the movements liquid and assured, my skin hot and tight, just from the look of utter disbelief mixed with lust as I denied him. I felt a powerful femininity coursing through my veins, making me feel light and strong and…

His hands were on my waist as I stood, still reveling in my triumph in my bedroom, and then I was being pushed rather roughly forward onto my bed, and he was pressing and pressing against me from behind, his lips and teeth and tongue playing over my shoulder and the back of my neck. I moaned in spite of myself and I could feel the grin on his features.

"You didn't really think I'd let you get away with that, did you?"

"I thought I was in charge." I challenged, though I had no desire for him to stop. His thumbs pressed my shirt up , running over the exposed skin on my lower back.

"I thought we were starting over, as equals?" He challenged, and pressed his growing erection against me, sending heat straight through me. God, but I wanted him. I was practically panting.

"Oh… yeah…" I breathed, pressing my forehead down into my sheets, swallowing convulsively. "…About that…"

He stopped, his breathing heavy against the nape of my neck. "…Yes?" I rolled over under him, so that we were facing each other and scooted further up the bed, out of his embrace.

"In relationships… being equals still means the woman calls the shots. …Didn't you know that?" I teased, running my tongue over my lips slowly and watching his tremble, his eyes following the path closely.

He continued to watch me for a long moment, and then swallowed, letting his eyes close and flutter open once more. "Sara… please…"

I sat up more fully on the bed and crossed my arms across my body, grasping the edges of my shirt and pulling it up and over my head in one smooth movement. His eyes darted from my eyes to my chest and back again, uncertain. I reached behind myself, unhooked the bra, and slowly slid it off, leaning back again, my fingers curling around the other side of the mattress. He still looked like he wasn't certain if I had acquiesced. He started to move forward, and then stopped himself, his breathing coming in soft pants.

Putting my weight on my left hand, I moved my right to my breasts, pinching each nipple though they didn't need the stimulation, and then sliding slowly down my stomach and under the waistband of my jeans. He licked his lips, watching me, still unmoving. I wondered what exactly it would take to move him… but when I tilted my head back, preparing for the pleasure even more the stimulation had occurred, he practically growled and launched himself up onto the bed, hands coming to my waist and jerking me roughly back up and against him.

His lips found mine and I sighed in contentment, pressing my body up to his. _This_ was what I wanted. _This_ was what last night should have felt like… and I abandoned myself to the feel of his hands, guiding me up to lie against the pillows, and his mouth, hot and sweet and gently probing, sending my mind reeling. He felt so good… it was like picking up a book you had loved as a child and rereading it as an adult. There's the strange sense of re-experiencing something treasured, yet you take so much more from it than you were able to as a child. The characters seem more vibrant, their conflicts so much more real, and the resolution all the sweeter.

It wasn't until I felt the soft hair of his chest pressing against my breasts, tickling, that I realized I had pulled his shirt over his head and still held it in my hands. I let it fall off the side of the bed, wrapping arms and legs around him, letting my fingertips rediscover my first and best lover. His body was just a little rounder, from the years, and just a little softer… but it felt nice. Comfortable. I had dated men who looked like they belonged on Baywatch before… and the appeal was fleeting. Sure, it was nice to let your fingers slide over a muscled chest, stomach, and arms… but it didn't compare with the feeling of _home_ that Gil had.

My hands next found his pants, making quick work of his button and his zipper. I wasn't rushing, per se, but I also was not prolonging my wait. I had waited six years to have him again. I shimmied the jeans down gently, careful to not have a zipper related mishap with the part of his body I was most eager for at the moment and he helped me, bicycling his legs until his jeans had fallen aside and then using his feet to remove his socks as well. When he rested back down in the cradle of my thighs, I could feel him so much better… and I exhaled slowly, like I'd been unknowingly holding my breath since I realized I would never feel him again and could finally release it, years later.

I arched my hips up against him and he groaned, leaning forward and capturing my bottom lip between his teeth and pressing his hips down to me. I moaned, reaching between us once again to take care of my own jeans, because he was certainly not getting to it quickly enough. But he got back up on his knees, brushed my hands away, and removed them himself, sliding them down my legs and slowly crawling back up over them to capture my lips again.

"…Sara…" He kissed me again. "I… I've dreamed of this moment… a thousand times. …I… I can't believe what I did… to you…I—"

"Shh…" I quieted him, dragging my nails down his chest and eliciting a groan. "Don't do that… We're here now." He groaned again when my palm came in contact with his erection, but it was fleeting. I moved away, slowly shimmying his boxers down as well. They had to stop at his knees and I frowned. He grinned, tugging my panties down to my knees and then lying against me, bicycling his feet a second time to remove his own offensive undergarments.

I tried to do the same but merely ran into his legs. His palms came down to my hips and slid, slowly, down my thighs, pushing the underwear lower until I could remove them myself with a few impatient kicks. His hands against my legs were making me shiver, and the piercing look in his bright blue eyes was making me weak with desire.

"Gil…"

He moved his body a little higher, so that he was pressed against me. My legs fell open easily to accommodate him and my eyelids were already fluttering closed. I just wanted to feel him. I needed to feel him so badly.

We both gasped softly as he came in more direct contact. I could feel the heat of him against me and it had my toes curling, wishing that he were lined up better—one good thrust of my hips and I could end all this horrible anticipation. I dug my fingernails into his shoulders and arched my body anyway, making the head of his penis slip just the tiniest bit further inside me. "Gil, please…"

He met my eyes and after one long moment, he was sliding into me, his breathing labored, and I felt my whole world falling back into place. I had told him that our first time had been like becoming whole without knowing I had been lacking before. And that feeling was returned. I had been with others, since Gil… and none had inspired this emotion. This completeness.

"Oh, god, Sara… you feel the same… so good… I… god, I've missed you…"

That was all it took to have me rolling us over, placing Gil on his back, and rocking slowly against him. He was so beautiful. His curls were messy, his head pressed back into the pillows, his mouth open and his eyes closed in a way that would almost seem serene, if it were not for his jaw tensing and untensing with my every movement.

Forward, tense. Back, untense. I had the feeling he was trying to last longer, and normally I would have delighted in allowing no such thing—I knew Gil would finish me, regardless of how and when he came—but I wanted this to last. We were joined together, again, after so much time. The moment deserved some amount of reverence.

His solid, strong hands were on my hips, not moving me, just holding tight. I sped up, just enough to drag another desperate moan from his open mouth… but after only a few of these quickened movements, his eyes were fluttering open. "Sara… Sar'… stop… stop, honey, I can't… I…" I slowed down, and he sighed in relief, pulling my body down to lay against him and placing a kiss on my lips. "Let's… roll over… I want you to come with me. I want… I want… you to…" I kissed him again, and then we were rolling.

Once on top, he grit his teeth, holding himself up on his forearms and rocking into me harder and harder, though the extra force wasn't necessary—just watching him get close had put me on the brink. Before long I was moaning loudly, grasping his shoulders desperately, my legs wrapped tightly around his waist and crossed at the ankles.

"Oh… so… so… close, Gil, please… come… come with me… so… close!" My climax rushed over me with speed that surprised me, making my entire body shudder and tingle, heat and reheat and contract around him. He pounded into me, prolonging the moment of bliss, and I felt him start to pulse within me as I was coming down, my name like a prayer on his lips. …And for the first time, I opened my eyes, and watched him come.

…Have I mentioned the man is beautiful? …Seeing him in the midst of release, vulnerable and shaking and desperate, is earth-shatteringly lovely. And he was vulnerable—his thrusts lost their rhythm and his hands gripped my shoulders as if his life depended on holding on, and the look on his face was absolute surrender. My name came with each jerky movement, more breathless and indistinguishable with each repetition. He collapsed on me, and I wrapped my arms around him, holding him against me.

I knew, in that moment, that he loved me. That he had never, ever stopped… and that despite my best arguments to the contrary, neither had I. And when we had made love, this time around… he had given himself over to me in a way he never had before. And in a sense, so had I. I had always, always given myself to him as a student, learning and seeking approval. He had never had me just as a woman.

But now… now we had come together as equals. We were one person in this moment, with him still pressed inside me, and I wanted it to last for as long as possible.


	15. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: :) It's short compared to my last few, but I should have another up today. Let me know what you think!

* * *

It took me several minutes to come back to myself and realize that I hadn't moved off of Sara's much smaller frame and that I was almost certainly crushing her. I rolled to the side, feeling myself slip out of her and immediately missing the connection. I tugged her closer—as close as I could—in an effort to regain the unity of a moment before, and then my eyelids flicker open. She was lying with her eyes closed, her lashes soft on her cheeks, looking sweetly satisfied and gently exhausted.

Maybe it's crazy, but I just felt closer to her than I ever had before. Even when we'd be constant lovers, not spending even a single night alone… I had never let myself go so much—I hadn't been calculating or manipulating or anticipating a situation in which I could assert my control… I had been a man on fire with passion and desire and absolute need for her. I have given myself entirely, and had gained so much in return.

I kissed her forehead and her eyes opened slowly, slightly out of focus. Sara was never, ever more beautiful than when she was disheveled. A halo of dark brown curls on the pillow beneath her, lips swollen and brightly pink, the lightest of sheens of sweat across her brow, the lids unable to remain open for more than a second or two. I kissed the parted lips again and sighed happily. "Do you want to sleep, or should I go heat up our lunch...?"

She chuckled softly, deep and throaty, and stretched her deliciously long limbs. "I could eat… if I thought I could stand…"

I grinned. "Don't move then. I'll be back." I kissed her temple this time and slid out of bed. I hesitated, and then slid my boxers back on. If it had been dark outside, or perhaps not our first time, or even in my townhome rather than her condo, I might have trekked my way out to the kitchen naked to microwave our lunch and return it to bed. But out of the covers, I felt a little out of my element. I moved out towards the kitchen, noting her dropping eyelids despite the smile still on her face, and hoped she wouldn't be asleep by the time I returned.

Hank lifted his head and groaned softly when I emerged, the look on his face telling me he knew exactly what I'd done in the bedroom that had been so very noisy and I found myself scowling at the dog and wishing I'd put him out on the balcony before I'd followed her into her bedroom. I grabbed the sandwich bag I'd discarded and placed her pita and my sandwich on separate plates, tapping my fingers on the counter while they heated.

When I came back into the room, she was not asleep, but sitting up in bed—though from the dazed look in her eyes, she was still deeply into her afterglow. She giggled when she saw me, and at my arched eyebrow, it turned into a full blown laugh. I smirked. "Why do I have the feeling I could tell you a knock-knock joke and it would leave you hysterical right now?" More giggles. I rolled my eyes and handed her the plate, slipping out of the boxers and back between her sheets with my own plate in hand.

She scooted closer to me, leaning her head sideways onto my shoulder. "Thank you, Gil."

I smiled. "Of course. …Listen, uh… I know this might not be the best time but… I wanted to talk to you about some things."

She smirked, sitting up and picking up her pita. "Jill told me about Leah Mason, Gil… Really, I'm not upset… she's known to be… opportunistic."

I smiled, taking a bite and nodding slowly, and then glancing back at her. "…Did your girls tell you about Kayla as well?"

She frowned, swallowing. "…Kayla? There are a few of the girls named Kayla, but none of the mentors…" I nodded, raising an eyebrow and her jaw dropped. "Not Kayla Morris?"

I shrugged. "She only asked me to take her to Vegas and use her body as I pleased… we hadn't gotten to exchanging last names…"

Her eyebrows found her hairline and she dropped her food to her plate. "…Red hair? Older than most of the girls?" I nodded yet again and she sighed. "She's… troubled."

I nodded, setting my sandwich down as well. "I… don't want to embarrass her or… anything, but… I thought… It's not normal for a sixteen year old girl to come on to a forty year old man. …Something has to be pretty bad where she's at right now. …I thought you could help."

She nodded, thoughtfully, chewing on her bottom lip. "I'll… talk to Jodie about it."

"I… don't want her to be in trouble… for what she said to me. I mean… clearly, she was desperate."

Sara smiled and leaned over and kissed me, picking up her food again. "That's something I've always, always admired about you—You have such a big heart, but you could always… separate… disconnect from cases. …I got emotional talking about hypothetical people enduring hypothetical horrors."

I picked my food up again as well. "…I spent too much of my life turning my emotions off. I… want to feel… out of control… for a change."

She giggled, softly. "You were pretty out of control a few minutes ago…"

I blushed and nudged her. "Pot calling the kettle black?"

She grinned. "I… I've missed this… missed you… so much."

I sighed happily. "I've missed you too."

After we finished our meal, I scooted down in bed and she tucked herself into the crook of my arm. "…You… have to go to Vegas soon."

The corner of my mouth pulled up. I didn't want to think about leaving her. I didn't want to think about two weeks from now. "I… I could get more vacation time. …Stay longer."

She didn't answer, and for a long moment the room was filled with soft breathing, the skin of her cheek soft against my shoulder, her nails tracing patterns on my stomach and side. It was a moment that should have been filled with contentment—the sleepy, sweet, contented connectedness of a shared afterglow. But I felt tense… felt like this was unavoidably fleeting. I wanted to suggest what I felt must be on both of our minds—one of us move, to be with the other—but I didn't know if this was suggesting too much. Expecting more than I had a right to.

"…That would still only be… temporary."

I breathed in slowly. The truth was that I didn't want to leave Las Vegas. A year ago… hell, six months ago, I would have been happy to move across the world for just the chance to be with Sara again. But I had just hired new members to my team—Nick and Warrick were so promising. And I wasn't an arrogant man, but if there was one thing I knew about myself, it was that I understood forensics and protocol to a fault. Both men would be great criminalists, without my guidance, but… Could I deny that they would be phenomenal with it? Between myself and Catherine and the pair of them in a year or so… We would literally have the best team of criminalists in the nation.

And I didn't care about the status—I cared about the potential good we could do in the city of sin.

But if I was honest with myself—which I tried to be, especially when determining something so very important—Sara had too much to give up to move for me. Even if she were willing, and there was no reason, thus far, to believe that she was... She'd built herself an entire life here. She had far more to lose than I did.

I sighed. "I… would like us… to be together. …Not… temporarily."

She nodded softly against my chest. "Me too."

That was the end of the conversation—we sat in silence for over an hour, holding each other, each caught up in thoughts of a situation that was certainly not impossible, but undeniably difficult. And when she sat up, stretching her slender frame, and suggested we shower and redress… I nodded, and agreed, and the subject fell away. I guess we just… weren't thinking about it.

Which was fine, except… eventually we would have to. There was an expiration date on our relationship, right now, and ignoring it wasn't going to make it go away.


	16. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: I do not own.

A/N: :) Let me know what you think.

* * *

I laid awake long after Gil had gone to sleep. We'd gone over to his hotel and cancelled his reservations, hauling all of his and Hank's stuff back to my condo. The truth was that neither of us really believed we would be sleeping separately now that we had made love and it made more sense to have everything in one place. We'd ordered a pizza and watched TV together, and then I'd kissed him and told him I had to get some work done, if he didn't mind. This wasn't entirely untrue—but a part of me just wanted a minute away from the intoxication that was Gil Grissom.

In my office, in front of my computer, with files spread out in front of me, I let the words blur together and considered the situation we were in. I loved him, and I knew I loved him and what was more, I knew that he loved me too. We might not have said it again, but it was clear. And we both wanted this to last. …And I knew the man well. If leaving Vegas were a simple solution… an option he might embrace without too much difficulty… he would have offered it already. Or… suggested it off-handedly, at the very least.

…This, of course, meant that… he might not be unwilling, but he didn't want to give up Vegas.

And while I knew I could pull the you-owe-me card and say that his previous deception meant that he needed to make the sacrifices this time around… I didn't want that. When people made sacrifices they normally wouldn't make because of some misplaced sense of guilt or obligation, it led to resentment. He wouldn't be happy if he made the choice for the wrong reasons.

But… I had so much to lose, too. The top of my list, I suppose, ought to have been my mother… but it wasn't. It was Kaitlin and Alexis and Jill. …I knew that they would find another mentor for the girls and that chances were they'd be okay. After all, they were in good homes. Alexis and Jill were unlikely to be moved any time soon—my guess would be that they would stay until they graduated and went to college. Kaitlin was less certain—which was why she often seemed so bossy… it was a brave front, because even if things were better than they had been, there was a level of insecurity.

Knowing that they'd be fine wasn't enough, though. I loved those girls—loved them like family, and I knew that while they would probably move on, it wouldn't be good for them. They already had trust issues. I… wanted to be around for first kisses and first dates and… the big stuff. The moments when they decided whether or not they should have sex because 'everyone was doing it' and the moments when they decided to drink or not to drink and to drive or not to drive afterwards. …I felt like, if I was there, they were more likely to make the right decisions…

My mother was a factor, however, even if she was secondary. Because it wasn't like I couldn't live without her or that I couldn't still have a relationship with her from Vegas. But we'd just reconnected and I'd had only a little over a year of actual renewed contact with her. And my brother… he was as likely to show up in Vegas as he was in San Francisco, but at least here I had a support system. My mother could come over to help me try to convince him for the hundredth time that he needed some help.

He said no, because he said he didn't want his baby sister paying for rehab. He really said no because he didn't want to give up the high. …So every few months he would stumble his way back into town, needing a shower and a change of clothes and a decent meal. We'd fight about what he should be doing to get his life together and about how I'd be more than happy to pay for rehab and counseling and to empty out my extra bedroom to let him stay with me for a while. It wasn't like I couldn't set up my computer in the living room and add a bookcase or two to my bedroom. Hell, I could rent a storage unit if I needed to.

…And then there was the job. Not that I didn't believe I could find the same job in Vegas, or that I was so attached to the kids I worked with that I could leave them—in truth I generally saw them for about a month and then, if I were lucky, I never saw them again… They were in a better place and didn't need me anymore. …But I had established a reputation, here. When parents were fighting to keep their children and I was assigned their guardian ad litem, nine times out of ten they broke down and agreed to measures they normally wouldn't have—counseling, rehab, visits by a social worker—because they knew that I didn't play soft ball. If a parent wanted to be a parent, then they needed to act like one—get their act together and fix the shit that had gotten them in this situation in the first place, or let somebody who would love them and provide for them take over.

I would have to start over in Vegas.

But Gil would have to start over here… and the San Francisco lab could not compete with the Vegas lab—not in resources or funding or talent. It would be like stepping backwards in his career. And if he decided to go back to teaching… he'd be leaving his career altogether, wouldn't he?

There had been a knock on my office door then, and Gil had smiled when I jumped. "Sorry… You must have been deep in thought. The phone rang… I, uh… hope you don't mind that I answered it, you just… didn't."

I blinked, and then nodded. "No… of course not. Who was it?"

He held up the phone. "They're still on the line… Jodie?"

"Oh, right." I picked up my own and smiled at him. "You might want to stay here… I left a message about Kayla. I'm sure she'll want to talk to you."

That fiasco had taken over an hour—and by the time we hung up, it sounded like Jodie was sending social services to the home to investigate and more than likely move Kayla to yet another home. It would be good if something was going on, but sometimes just the moving itself was bad. All you wanted was consistency—to know where you were going to be, day in and out, and what was going to happen.

Once I hung up, I buried my head in my hands. I had a headache and had gotten absolutely no work done—and I still didn't know what to do about Gil. I suggested we take Hank on the walk he'd missed out on earlier and after throwing on sweatshirts, we walked around in the growing twilight, stopping for ice cream and taking it down to eat while sitting in the rapidly cooling sand. Hank ran into the water once or twice before remembering that he hated the waves and the salt, and spent the rest of the time chasing seagulls until they stopped landing near enough for him to run through them and scatter them. Then he settled beside us on the sand, panting but smiling, and I laid back, watching the stars.

Gil followed suit, holding my hand and staring upwards. "You don't see this many stars in Vegas… but if you go out far enough… away from the lights of the strip, into the desert, it's like a whole other world. …This pales in comparison. It's like… what the sky must have looked like, before humans came along and distorted everything."

I hummed softly under my breath, imagining it. "…Do you think we'd be better off? I mean… without the technology and the… brain development? If we'd stayed a little more animalistic… a little… less human?"

He rolled his head to look at me. "…Lots of animals eat their young, Sara. Kayla wouldn't be any better off without electricity and higher brain function."

I frowned. I had forgotten how well Gil could read me.

We stayed there until it started to get cold, and then walked home, collapsing into bed. Gil had fallen asleep immediately, his arms wrapped tightly around me… but I couldn't sleep. My body was exhausted, but my mind was racing. Eventually, hours after he'd fallen asleep, I got out of bed and padded out into my kitchen, pulling on the sweatshirt I'd discarded earlier and grabbing the pizza box and a bottle of water out of the fridge and taking them out onto the balcony, looking up at the sky again.

Hank came out a few minutes later while I munched on the cold leftovers and watched the occasional plane and helicopter pass through the big dipper. He curled against my side, keeping me warm, and I sighed. "…What do you think, Hank? Do you want to stay here, or go back to working in the Vegas lab?" He groaned and looked at me, licking his lips.

I gave him a half smile. "…Yeah. I can't decide either."


	17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: I do not own.

A/N: Sorry it's up so late in the day. I will probably have another up tonight, but no promises. :)

Jelly--Sara told me that she likes Grissom's 'sleeptooting,' thank you very much.

...And that goes for all you circling vultures who apparently go weak in the knees for a Grissom who uses certain phrases. :P I think you will see, in this chapter and back in the cookie contest, that Grissom has options. He doesn't need any more 'venues' to explore. -glares-

:) Thanks for the lovely reviews. They always make me smile. Especially the silly ones.

* * *

The weekend passed uneventfully, but the following week held more than its share of difficulties. Monday morning, Sara woke up and hopped in the shower, and belatedly I rose and climbed in with her, successfully making her rush out with only half-dry hair, carrying granola bars, her cheeks bright. I dressed, ate, and took Hank for a walk, and we were scanning through daytime television when she returned over her lunch hour, eyes over bright, promising retribution. She kneeled in front of me where I sat on the couch, unbuttoned and unzipped my pants, and wasted not a moment in stroking me until I was hard and then placing her mouth around me.

The suddenness of the event left me reeling, and the feel of her mouth on me after so long was amazing. It took minutes before I was gently rocking—the only thing I could do to keep from bucking up hard into her mouth—and then my hands were in her hair, and I was so, so close… I was about to….

She pulled her mouth from me, licked her lips, and grinned, glancing at her watch. "Gee, look at the time—I better grab a sandwich and head back to work." I stared at her in disbelief, and she simply giggled, swatting me away playfully whenever I tried to distract her from the sandwich-making.

Normally I would have taken care of the problem myself once she'd gone… but nothing I could do would compare to the feeling of her lips and teeth and tongue and deep, dark, warmth of her soft little mouth around me. So I suffered through the day, anticipating the night… only to remember an hour before she came home that it was 'Margarita Monday,' and she'd be going out with her girlfriends tonight. She asked about picking up take-out on the way home when she called—the thing which reminded me of the alliterative plans for the night—and I sighed, telling her that I could order it so she didn't have to make a detour.

Apparently, I would have to wait even longer.

She invited me, of course, but it was the perfunctory kind of invitation—the one you offered because it was rude not to, rather than because you wanted someone to come along. …She may have wanted me there, I don't mean to say that she didn't… but it was girl time. She needed it, and I needed to let her have it without feeling guilty. An hour after she'd left, however, she was letting herself back into the condo with four other women trailing, telling me that once they'd heard about me, they'd insisted they finish their night out…. well, in.

Sara broke out her blender and tequila while her friends sat around me—in old, torn up jeans, bare feet, and an ancient Crime Lab t-shirt, because I hadn't been expecting to meet her friends—and badgered me with questions that I'm quite certain would have come out more tactfully had they all clearly not started drinking long before Sara must have arrived. I couldn't keep them all straight, so I relied on nicknames in my own head.

"How did you and Sara meet?" One asked—She was wearing a turquoise, sequined cocktail dress.

"The first time?"

They all laughed, and sequins nodded, leaning close to me. "Yes… tell us about… the first time."

I swallowed, blushing, while Sara chuckled in the kitchen, mixing more alcohol for her clearly intoxicated friends. "I, uh… Well… we… met when Sara was at Harvard." I glanced at her, and the slight shake of her head told me they didn't know I had been her teacher… and that she didn't want them to.

Another woman—who looked closer to sober than the rest of them—laid a hand on my forearm. "You're older than her… were you in grad school?"

I smiled. "No. …No, I, uh… I was just working in Boston for a little while. I… needed a change of scenery, at the time."

"And Sara was your scenery?!" Said a third woman, whose dyed red hair matched her red halter.

I blushed again. "No. …No, I just…." I sighed, in frustration. "Well, anyway, we ran into each other, again, the other day… and it was like fate."

A chorus of 'Aww!' followed and I chuckled too. Seemed like I'd found the secret to ending the questions, at least temporarily. Sara returned with a pitcher and glasses and the women were momentarily distracted with their drinks. She glanced around and then met my eyes, mouthing 'thank you' as she passed me a margarita that I would probably hardly touch. Tequila wasn't my liquor of choice.

Sequins batted her eyelashes at me. "So…. the famous Gil Grissom." It was apparently a question, because they all looked at me for a response, but I wasn't sure what the question was. Clearly Sara hadn't told them much about me, so I must be famous in the traditional sense—forensics. I smiled.

"You work with Sara?"

They all laughed. "How did you guess?" Asked Sequins. I smiled, though it was with effort.

"I… just had a feeling."

A woman who hadn't spoken—who was wearing a much-too-short black leather skirt—chuckled throatily and put her hand on my thigh, making me jump. "Do you… have any other feelings?" I nearly choked, despite having nothing in my mouth, and Sara snorted into her margarita, seeming entirely unthreatened. Either she didn't care that her friends were groping me, or it was still harmless.

I casually took Black Leather's hand, examining a ring. "I have a feeling that you have excellent taste. Is that topaz?" I asked, glancing at the light blue stone and then settling her hand back on her own leg. She giggled, which inspired giggling from the rest of them. …I had forgotten what twenty-four year olds were like. Sara…wasn't like that, more often than not.

"Smooth." Added the woman in Red. And they were laughing again.

It continued like that, Sara and the slightly sober one rescuing me when I was rendered utterly speechless by the other three, and by the end of the night I felt like a high school cheerleader with low self-esteem—overly groped and uncomfortable. Sara, who had sipped her drink for the majority of the night, helped her friends into cabs nearing midnight, looking exhausted and thoroughly amused.

"…Are they always like that?" I asked, when she came back inside after sending off the final friend—the blonde with big hair, who had surprisingly been one of the quietest.

She laughed. "No—it's because it's the first time they're meeting you. I told them I'd known you when I was at Harvard and that I thought it might turn into something pretty serious, and because they hadn't heard about you—I don't exactly like to flaunt how easily I allowed myself to be manipulated…—they were curious. They… like to push limits."

I chuckled. "I don't think I've been hit on so much since…"

"College?" She suggested.

"Harvard." I countered, grinning.

Her eyes flashed and she hit me softly. "I did _not_ hit on you…"

I raised a skeptical eyebrow teasingly and she smiled and laid a kiss on my lips, softly. "You were so very gentlemanly in your efforts to turn them away…"

I grinned and kissed her more deeply. "I'm sleeping in the bed of the most beautiful woman in the world. …Just because they can't hold a candle to you doesn't mean I have to hurt their feelings..." I caught her lips again, slipping my tongue between her lips, and her moan of appreciation told me I would finally find some relief after the way she'd teased me during her lunch break.

The next day, I made omelets while she showered and her surprised smile of appreciation carried me through the day—until she called me a half hour before she was likely to be off work. She called her home phone, which I answered with some hesitation, but I was pleasantly surprised that she had called 'home' to talk to me.

"So… I just got off the phone with Jodie."

"…The head of your mentoring program?"

"Yeah… It sounds like social services are going to take Kayla and the other kids out of the home, pending an investigation. …They're… worried about sexual assault."

I frowned. I supposed it made sense that Jodie should know this—their mentors should know what was going on in the kids homes. Why was she telling Sara? Just because Sara had brought it to their attention?

"…That's… horrible. I hope they're wrong."

"Me too." She sighed. "Gil… I, uh… I'm a kind of… emergency foster parent. Jodie was calling me to let me know that there was… the possibility that I would get a call, in the next hour or so."

I blinked. "An… emergency foster parent? What does that mean?"

"I… take kids for a night or two, when they're taken from their parents or foster homes, until they can find a more permanent place for them."

"Oh… So… You might be asked to take a kid tonight?"

I could hear the rustle of her nodding on the other end of the line, forgetting that I couldn't see her. "Is that… going to be a problem?"

I frowned. Not that it would upset me so much, but just that we had a limited amount of time together before we needed to figure out what we were doing… and she already worked and had certain days set aside for certain people in her life… I didn't want to give up any more of my time with her.

"I… Sara, I'm… I'm your guest here. I… would like some time alone with you, but I… If it's something you need to do, I don't want to interrupt your life. I… want to find a place in it."

She sighed, and I heard some papers rustling. "I might not even be called but… If I am, Gil, I… can't really say no."

I nodded. "Okay… That's fine. I… I can do kids. Especially toddlers. Lindsey was fun as a toddler."

"Lindsey?"

"Oh—I guess I didn't tell you. Catherine's daughter. Sweet little girl—she calls me Uncle Gil." I said, with a hint of pride, and I could hear Sara smiling too.

"Okay, Gil. I, uh… I'll be on my way home soon."

"See you soon." I responded, listening for the click before I sighed softly.

It wasn't that it would be so bad to have a kid in the house for a day or two… But if I wasn't all that good with the kid, what would that mean to Sara? Did she want kids someday…? She certainly seemed to be pretty devoted to them… Would she decide that she didn't want to be with me if I wasn't going to be a good daddy?


	18. Chapter 18

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Oh you vultures you. :)

For those of you who are concerned about the hoops Grissom is jumping through, I'm not making him do it because I think he has anything to make up to her, per se. I'm not being evil, just having fun. :) And don't worry, they'll talk soon.

* * *

I received the call on my cell phone, on the drive home from the office. They wanted me to take an infant—a little boy named Brady. I told them I could, and that I would come to them—because I had a boyfriend staying with me for the next two weeks, and they would need his information. I called Gil when I was close, and quickly told him that we were getting a little visitor for a night, maybe two, and asked if he would meet me downstairs. He was already waiting when I pulled up, and slid into the passenger seat. I glanced over at him.

"Are you okay with this, Gil?"

He nodded, hesitantly. "Yeah… It, uh… It's not going to be Kayla, is it?"

I smiled indulgently. "No—considering that her coming on to you is the reason we thought there might be a problem, they figured it wasn't a good idea. We're getting a little boy… I think he's… nine or ten months. Brady."

He visibly gulped, and I smiled. His worry was endearing. "It'll be fine, Gil. Tomorrow morning I'll call around to some daycares and see if they can take him for drop in. You won't have to watch him alone."

He nodded, slowly, looking uncertain but relieved. I offered him my hand and he took it, squeezing gently. "Thank you."

He smiled—"Hey, I've lived through teenage girls threatening me, young women hitting on me, and much older women offering me sex with no strings attached. It'll be nice to do something for you that _doesn't _involve women."

I smiled at his joke and shortly after we had parked and moved inside. Gil had to fill out information for a background check so Brady could stay with him, and I took the car seat out to hook it up in my backseat. They gave us a can of the type of formula he was on and his information—no allergies, ten months old, eating most table food—with the obvious exceptions of things like peanut butter, honey, chocolate, and fish—sleeps swaddled in a blanket still, with a pacifier. Uses Pampers diapers and wipes. I tucked his formula and bottles into the diaper bag they handed me, but a quick glance inside told me that we'd need to go shopping for more diapers the next day. He could get through a day, maybe two, but I didn't want to take any chances.

They gave Gil the clearance and brought out Brady—he had a shock of dark brown hair on his head, long and straight and falling over eyes that were a very light blue. Lighter than Gil's… like the sky. His cheeks were rosy red and chubby, and he looked at us with open wonder. I smiled and took him.

"Hi, Brady. My name's Sara and this is Gil." I turned him so that his gaze fell on… my boyfriend? My lover? Gil gave the child a hesitant smile and I giggled. "He's kind of shy. …Isn't he?" I slipped into baby talk without thought, slipping the boy onto my hip and signing their forms before struggling to pull the diaper bag onto my shoulder. Gil took it instead, and I flashed him a smile in thanks. "Are we gonna go for a car ride, Brady? We're gonna go Vroom!"

He giggled and I smiled. "Do you like that? …Vroom!" I said again, eliciting a giggle. Gil chuckled behind me and I smiled. This wasn't going to be so bad…

I had a pack and play that I'd bought at a rummage sale for just such an occasion, and I dragged it out of my office/spare room's closet and set it up, wiping it down to make sure it was dust-free. While I did this, Brady sat on the living room floor with Gil and Hank. I hesitated, before leaving my boys together… but I knew that Hank was a service animal. He would know how to treat a baby, even if Gil was doubting himself.

Once his bed for the night was set up, I pulled out a highchair seat that attached to the end of a table or counter and brought it out, wiping it down and hooking it up to the bar top, because I wasn't sure if my glass table would support it—I'd had babies stay with me before, but they'd always been so little that I hadn't needed the hand-me-down highchair. They were still sitting, silently, on the carpet. Hank had moved closer and Brady was giggling, lifting Hank's ears up high while the patient dog sat still, allowing himself to be played with, while Gil watched on apprehensively.

I gave him a break and played on the floor with Brady while Gil cooked for us, and then we sat at the counter to eat so that Brady wouldn't feel left out. Once again, Gil offered to clean up, more than likely to let me take care of the child, and by eight o'clock the child was drinking a bottle, wrapped in a blanket, his eyes tightly closed. After I'd put him to bed, I curled up beside Gil on the couch. "Hey… You've been really quiet tonight. Are you okay?"

He sighed. "I… I wanted to… be really good with him. Show you that… I would be a good daddy because… kids just seem so important to you. But… I had no idea what to do. I… Sara, I just stared at him. _Hank_ was a better babysitter than I was!"

I smiled and kissed him. "Gil—how you react to a strange child has nothing to do with your ability to parent. It's… different when it's your own. Besides… I haven't necessarily decided if I want children anyway."

He huffed. "That's another thing. You're young—you have another decade and more to decide if you want kids. …Sara, honey… I'm nearing forty. I… Do you think I should be starting a family at fifty? Or sixty, if you want to focus on your career for a while? …Maybe… maybe you'd be better off with… Jordan."

I sat up, alarmed. "How do you know about Jordan?" He gave me a look that spoke volumes. I sighed. "The girls?"

"Kaitlin, specifically."

I clucked my tongue. "Gil… There's a reason that you're practically living in my home and I didn't accept a second date. …Why we're sleeping together and I wouldn't kiss him at the door. He was an idiot."

He smiled, but then sighed again, and it slid off his face as if it had never been there. "He's not an idiot, Sara. Just because he doesn't know about maggots… He's an astrophysicist!"

I chuckled. "You really shouldn't listen to Kaitlin so much. Jordan's a classical cellist. Still impressive but… his genius doesn't extend beyond music. The astrophysicist was the one who smelled constantly of meatballs. …I think she was just combining a few dates to make a really threatening superman to worry you."

"She said he looked like superman as Clark Kent…" He mumbled, and I couldn't help but laugh at how adorable he was.

"That was Sam—my surf instructor. Hot, but certainly not going anywhere. He's more interested in smoking pot and attending bonfires and playing the field."

"…Still. Any one of those guys…"

"Gil." I silenced him, feeling impatient. "You are the total package. You're not hot but a loser, you're the sexiest man I've ever known. You're not brilliant but smelly—you're the most intelligent man I've ever met. The first real challenge I've ever found in a man… and you smell like warmth and comfort and home… sweetly masculine, but not like bad cologne."

He was smiling, but he seemed to need to boost his ego just a little more. "…I can't play any instrument. …I'm not particularly artistic or talented at all."

I shook my head, smiling at him. "It's a wonder you never took up acting… I think you could be great at it, with a little encouragement. …And believe me, nobody can lift fingerprints or estimate TOD via an insect timeline like you can, babe."

He laughed, watching me, and then it faded away, but his eyes remained fixed on me. I felt myself blushing under his gaze, swallowing hard, wondering what he was thinking…

"I love you, Sara. …I've loved you for as long as I've known you. Time and distance couldn't make it stop and… and even though I feel like… like you deserve so much more than me… If you'll have me, I will do everything in my power to make you happy."

My mouth felt dry. I watched him for a long moment, stunned… and then I kissed him, as hard as I could. "I." I kissed him. "Love." Kiss. "You." Kiss. "Too." Kiss. "Gil." He fell backwards under my attentions and once he hit the couch, he chuckled softly against my lips.

"Sara—"

I moaned and straddled his hips.

"Sar'—"

My hands slid up under his shirt.

He laughed again. "Sara. Honey…" He pulled from my lips. "Let's go to the bedroom, honey…"

I nodded, feeling the insatiable need to feel him against me, around me, inside me. I don't remember the walk to the bedroom, and I don't remember pulling off his clothes, or how my own were removed, I just remember falling onto the mattress with Gil above me, the smell of him in my nose, the sound of his breathing and his soft moans in my ears, the taste of him on my tongue—coffee and something sweeter—and the feel of him all around me. The soft hair on his chest, the muscled shape of his legs, the enclosure of his arms, the hard length of him between my thighs.

"Oh, Gil…" I moaned softly. I had been apprehensive, when we first started dating, that he might still be the way he used to be… or that he might slip into old tendencies. But he had been amazing through all of this—nothing like he'd been before. And the way he'd told me he loved me… it was like he was proposing we have a life together. Not just, I love you, let's see where this goes. I love you, and I want to love you for the rest of forever. And I wanted to love him for the rest of forever too.

He didn't hesitate to slide inside me—we didn't need the extra foreplay—but once inside, his movements were slow and building, his kisses falling across my face and dipping deep into my mouth, prolonging the experience and making me _feel_ the love he had for me. Despite the softness and the slowness, I felt my climax building, and he knew it—he groaned at my whimpers, and his big hands slipped between us, pressing against my clitoris and sending me over in a trembling mass of unexpected pleasure. My toes curled and I tightened all my limbs around him, whispering his name.

When I came down, breathing rapidly and still somehow softly, his eyes were fixed on mine, and I blushed, feeling like he had watched me come as closely as I had watched him the other day, wondering if I had looked as vulnerable and as lost in him as he had in me. His voice was raspy and deep when he spoke.

"Touch yourself, Sara… Come with me…"

He started moving again, speeding up, but still keeping his strokes long and gentle. My hand moved between us, down my abdomen, pressing where he told me and feeling myself tighten around him at the sensation, my eyes rolling back in my head. When soft wails forced their way through my parted lips and the hand that was not between us dug into his shoulder blades, his thrusts became harder, his breathing ragged… and then my name was coming on a whisper as well, and we were flying into the abyss together.

When my eyes fluttered open to him rolling off me and pulling me against him, I smiled softly. Gil was perfect… and even if we didn't have everything figured out, I knew we were going to fight to stay together this time. I rolled into his embrace, kissing him softly and preparing to slip into sleep…

Brady started crying.


	19. Chapter 19

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Sorry it's not super eventful, especially after not updating yesterday. I'm exhausted. You'd think being on Spring Break would give me more time to write, but instead it's just given me more time to nap. Hehe. I'll try to be better.

Oh, and for the record, Brady had gone to bed right before Sara and Grissom got involved... he wasn't waiting for them to finish. It was a coincidence. There was no reason for him to be awake yet. :P

Also, it was We-just-said-I-love-you-sex. Even babies know not to interrupt that. :)

Enjoy!

* * *

I groaned. He'd gone to sleep, what, an hour ago? We'd been quiet. There was no reason he should be up yet. I glanced at Sara as she sighed and sat up, swaying a little, left dizzy from our lovemaking. I sighed and kissed her. "Lay down, honey. I'll get him."

She looked at me in complete surprise, but laid back and let me get out, stumble into my boxers, and make my way down the hall to her office and the new makeshift nursery. I didn't necessarily know much about babies, but I had watched Sara do the basics. I hovered over his crib and then gently picked him up, supporting his head, even though I figured he was too old to need that.

I wasn't taking any chances.

His wailing slowed and softened—he was still letting out whimpering cries, but he wasn't shrieking anymore. I cradled him in one arm and moved over to Sara's desk, turning on her lamp because it wouldn't be as bright as the overhead light. He had just drank most of a bottle—the one he hadn't quite finished was resting on the desktop, where Sara had obviously forgotten she'd left it. I picked it up and offered it to him, but he turned his head away without even trying. Apparently he wasn't hungry.

What did that leave? I bent down on the floor, feeling my knees creak, and laid him down, carefully unzipping his pajamas and looking at the diaper. If I had to guess, it didn't look very full. Sara had changed him before his bottle, after all. But, you never know until you try, right? So I pulled his diaper bag over and took out a diaper and wipes, and then looking at the little boy with no small amount of confusion.

"…How exactly does this work?" I asked the little boy, who had trails of tears on his face, but was mostly quiet, just now. I decided to play it safe—I didn't want him going on Sara's carpet. I flattened out the clean diaper and put it under him before opening the one he was wearing and replacing it as quickly as possible. It was only a little wet. I had probably not fixed anything.

I sighed, slipping the diaper into the plastic-lined garbage can Sara had resting beside the crib she'd set up. I redressed him and then looked at him. If he wasn't hungry and he didn't need a change… he was probably tired. Hell, I was tired. …Exhausted, really. Although that had more to do with the long-legged brunette who was probably already asleep by now.

I pulled his blanket from his crib and spread it out, laying him across it and doing my best to mimic what Sara had done earlier, so that he was wrapped tight like a burrito. Next, I retrieved his pacifier from the crib and popped it in his mouth. He started sucking and immediately his eyelids began to droop. I was about to sigh in relief, when they snapped open again and he started wailing. …He was tired, but he didn't want to sleep. I picked him up and cradled him again, sitting in Sara's office chair which thankfully rocked backwards. The movement was a little jerky, as the chair wasn't meant to be a rocker, but it served its purpose.

"How come you don't want to sleep, little man?" I talked to him, thinking that just a voice might be soothing. Certainly my silence hadn't been helping. "Do you miss your mommy?"

His eyes drooped again and though they didn't close all the way, he also didn't snap them open in alarm. I smiled. "I know how rough that can be. …I bet it's scary, being in a new place. Sara's nice though, isn't she? …I know you liked her, because you went right to sleep for her…"

His eyes were closed, but when I stopped talking, they fluttered halfway open again. "I can be nice too," I said, simply at a loss for what else to talk to him about—but it seemed to help; they closed again. "I just don't really know… how to take care of babies. …For someone so little, Brady, you're pretty intimidating. …Sara loves you though. You can see it in her eyes. She doesn't even know you yet, really, but she loves you. So there's nothing to worry about… Even Hank likes you. ...I like you too, really, I just… I don't want to mess this up, you know?" I glanced down at him. He seemed like he was out, but I wasn't certain.

"…I told her I loved her tonight, Brady. She loves me too. …I don't know what I did to deserve it. I mean… You deserve it. Poor kid. …You're too young to be in this situation. …But I… I know I don't deserve it, but she loves me anyway. Isn't that amazing?"

I look down at him, realizing that I'm expecting a response that will never come. He's softly snoring. I ease out of the chair and move as slowly as I can to his crib, bending down to lay him back to sleep. He stirs, a little, but doesn't wake, and I move to turn the light off and tiptoe out of the room. I moved back to Sara's bedroom, slipping my boxers back off and sliding into bed, expecting her to be asleep.

I lay down, thinking idly how we had almost had this. Sara had thought she was pregnant, before I left. …I could vividly imagine going to our own baby's room and lulling him or her to sleep so that Sara could get some much needed rest. …But it was better, this way. Sara had been far too young… and things were so much better now. Our relationship was real, and I wasn't constantly afraid of losing her—I'd been honest. If she didn't want me, she wouldn't be giving me a second chance. She wouldn't be sleeping with me, and she certainly wouldn't be telling me that she loved me.

Sara rolled over, putting her head on my chest. "…You're so sweet, Gil." She mutters sleepily, and I feel the corner of my mouth twitch up. Apparently she had heard Brady and I's conversation.

I got up with him again, the next morning, when he woke up before six. Sara had to work today—she needed the rest. I changed his diaper and gave him a bottle and then used Sara's computer to look up what babies could eat for breakfast, despite knowing that he was on table food.

An hour later, he was tucked into the high chair with a pile of Cheerios in front of him and Hank beneath him, no doubt hoping he would drop something tasty, while I made Pancakes for when Sara woke up. She wandered out, in a bathrobe, a little after seven, yawning and looking surprised to see everyone awake. "I'm sorry, Gil. I could have gotten him."

I smile, glancing at the little boy who was now deliberately sliding his hands across the high chair top to make Cheerios fall for Hank. "That's fine. …I think Brady and I have bonded."

She laughed lightly at my words, moving over and kissing me quickly. "You're too good to me." She hugged me, and then moved over to a drawer and pulled out a phone book. "I'd better start calling daycares… see if anyone can take a drop in for a day or two…"

She got all the way to the section, and was moving for her phone before I made up my mind. "I… can keep him."

She looked up at me in surprise. "…What?"

I shrugged, a little uncomfortably. "Today. I mean… I can keep him. …It shouldn't be too hard, right?"

She tilted her head. "Really, Gil, you don't have to. …I'm not going to think anything negative about you, if you don't…"

" I know," I say, and am surprised to find that I sincerely mean it. "I… think I want to keep him."

She raised her eyebrows, but nodded. "Okay… You'll… call if you need anything, right?"

"Of course." I reassure her, feeling that I'm the one who now needs the reassure. She smiled and kisses me again.

"Okay. …I'm gonna jump in the shower, quick, if that's okay?"

"Take your time." I say, overcome with how beautiful she looks right now. Her curls are loose, her hair frizzed up above its normal height. Her robe is thin so she keeps her arms crossed over her body in the early morning chill, and her feet are sweetly bare. I felt the strong desire to enter the shower with her and make certain that she took a good deal of time… but I put it from my mind. Brady was awake, and besides, I was making pancakes. My fantasies could wait.

The day actually went pretty easily. He was a happy little boy, who didn't cry unless he wanted something or had tipped himself over, and he took two fairly long naps. He didn't wake up, that night, despite the slightly-louder nature of our lovemaking, and once again, I got up early with him. Sara had hardly been up a minute before the phone was ringing—they'd found a permanent place for Brady, and his social worker would be picking him up before nine. Sara had to rush to work, so I was left to give him back.

And I was shocked at how upset I felt, saying goodbye to Brady and letting the woman take him. …I realized that I sincerely hoped that Sara wanted children… because I did, but I would never want them with anyone else.


	20. Chapter 20

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Sorry to all my lovely readers for the delay. I wrote and rewrote their breakfast with Sara's mom, and finally decided to add some smut to tide you over until I can fix it to my liking. :) Oh, and I wasted some time watching Kiss the Sky, which made me view Grissom is a crazy different light. I mean, I know that he's a character... and that _Grissom_ probably wouldn't have a three-some... but still. The image is there, and William Petersen will always be Grissom in my head. :)

The Norwegian comes from a CSI website--I don't know if its right, or spelled right, just so you know.

Also--Does anyone know what's coming during this sleepover? -giggles evily- :)

* * *

Thursday passed without incident, and that night Sara called her mother to tell her she was bringing me to their breakfast the next day to meet her. The conversation went on for over an hour, so I contented myself watching baseball on her couch, wondering what Brady was doing and if he liked the new people he was staying with. When she got off, she set the phone down and sauntered over to me, stepping onto the couch and curling up against me, her feet tucked under her.

"She's excited to meet you."

I nod, frowning a little. "Does… does she… know about… Boston?"

Sara's smile faded, just a little, giving me my answer before she spoke. "She does. …But, I told you that you'd changed… and she trusts me. Really—Everything will be fine."

I nodded, tugging her closer to me. "Som man reder sa ligger man." At her curious look, I laughed. "The lab tech I told you about—Greg—says that often. Apparently his Norwegian grandfather said it a lot, when he was growing up… 'One must lie in the bed one has made.'"

She kissed my cheek. "Speaking of beds… I, uh… I never told the girls we'd have to cancel our sleepover. Between you being the cookie judge and their interrogating you and then Kayla and Brady and… us… I completely forgot."

I raised my eyebrows, but shrugged. "Okay. So you'll still have it—Do you need me to get a hotel room Saturday night?"

Her eyes opened wide. "No. No, Gil, of course not… I just didn't think you'd want me to have them over again, after they gave you such a hard time."

I shook my head. "They're just protective of you. …Believe me, they were far less frightening than your adult friends."

Sara laughed and even blushed a little. "Yeah… they started pretty early. …I'm sorry about that too."

"Don't be." I kissed her softly. "So the sleepover is Saturday night?" At her nod, I smiled. "How about, after breakfast with your mom tomorrow, I go pick up snacks and… whatever else you need, for a sleepover. That way we can have Friday night to ourselves, without worrying about running errands."

She grinned. "You're too sweet, Gil. That'll really help. I'm picking the girls up around noon on Saturday… I dunno what they have planned yet, though. I told them we'd do whatever they wanted."

I laughed. "Should I be afraid?"

She giggled. "Yes. Probably. …I can't tell you how many times I've put on a tank top and windbreakers to make up a dance as Sporty Spice."

I snorted. "Tell me you're joking. " She shook her head.

"I wish I could. At the very least I got the least embarrassing member of the group."

I shook my head, pulling her into my lap and kissing her soundly. "So… what would it take me to get you to dress up and show me your dance moves?"

She giggled and slid out of my arms, positively sauntering over to the hallway, her bedroom the clear destination. "I don't know if you've got it in you, bugman." She winked.

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn't help but play along—growling and jumping up and chasing her as she giggled and ran down the hall. I managed to catch her just before she entered her bedroom, pushing her roughly against the wall and capturing her mouth with my own. She gasped and then moaned into the kiss, her fingernails digging into my shoulders. My hands moved down her body, tracing her silhouette, and I knew without a single hesitating thought that I would always desire this woman as fervently as I did in this moment.

I broke from her lips to glide my lips across her collarbone, hands already inching beneath her shirt, reveling in the twitching muscles of her stomach, reacting to my presence there. I moved slowly, inching my mouth down and my hands up, teasing, until she finally became impatient and pulled the shirt off herself, arching into my body, silently asking for my contact.

I devoured her in every sense of the word—I touched and tasted every inch of her, somehow struggling out of my own shirt and pants in the process, my fingers fumbling and desperate until I had finally pulled the offensive clothing from my legs and pressed my body to hers again. I groaned at the contact, my hands already clutching at her thighs and dragging her up, despite the fact I had yet to remove her pants.

She knocked her head against a picture she had hanging in the hallways, and with a muttered apology I moved us over, pressing myself between her legs and nearly losing my mind at the noises she was making. I laid my forehead against hers, breathing heavy, grunting as her hips rocked up to meet mine, and finally couldn't take it anymore. I slid her out of my arms, back onto her feet, and attacked the button at the front of her pants, frantically undoing it and tugging her pants down straight to her ankles.

I kneeled in front of her, breathing in the scent of her arousal and trailing my fingertips from her ankles to the thighs and back down again, until she had leaned back against the wall, her hips arching out and her legs parting involuntarily, revealing her need for me. I used my teeth to tug her panties down to her thighs and immediately began teasing her with a furtive stroke here and there while my hands inched them the rest of the way down.

By the time I had to pull my head back to direct her to step out of her panties, Sara was panting above me, her eyes closed, her frame limp against the wall behind her. I coaxed her feet free and wrapped a leg over my shoulder, teasing her with my tongue, back and forth over her clitoris, a finger ghosting over her opening until she was bucking her hips against my mouth, trying for more. I pushed one finger into her, and then two, drawing her little nub into my mouth and sucking hard.

"Oh… Oh Gil!" I continued, hoping she was on the brink, and groaned against her when I felt her hands slide into my hair and grip it tightly. I curled my fingers up, pressing against her g-spot, and pulled my mouth from her long enough to offer some words of encouragement.

"God… you're so fucking beautiful like this, Sara…" I moved my fingers faster and harder. "If I could do this forever… keep you feeling just like this, forever…"

Her nails dug into my scalp and her moans intensified, her hips rocking in time with my fingers. I laid a kiss to her stomach and pressed my thumb against her, taking up where my tongue had left off. "You're gonna come for me, Sara." I smirked, and slipped into the 'teacher voice' she had always loved, pressing even harder at the same time. "Sara—Do you want to come?"

She shuddered, a groan slipping from her lips. "God, yes. Yes… I want to… I want you, so bad."

I granted her a swift swipe with my tongue and then replaced it once again with my thumb. "Come for me, Sara. Come right now." Her body arched against me as far as I was sure it could, her leg drawing me tight against her and I captured her in my mouth again while she rocked against me, her whole frame shaking with the force of her orgasm.

I waited just long enough for her eyes to flutter open, after she'd finished, and then rose, holding on to her to keep her steady, laying a kiss over her lips that had her groaning again, slipping her tongue into my mouth. I slid out of my boxers, lifted the leg I'd neglected before and wrapped it up over my hip, slipping between her legs and between her folds as easily as a warm knife through butter. She shuddered and gripped my shoulders when I pushed inside her entirely, and minutes after we started, her knees were giving out. Without warning, she reached over to the little table at the end of her hall, pushed the books resting on it to the floor, and I took her meaning quite clearly, guiding her over and resting her up on it.

She leaned back against the wall, wrapped her legs around my waist, and pulled me in close, so that her breasts slid across my chest with each thrust. I buried my face in her shoulder, murmuring my love for her… telling her how close she felt, and how I never, ever felt as good as I did when we were together like this, and just how perfect I thought she was—her second orgasm was larger, and her screams louder, but it was still somehow gentler… and it drove me right into the sweetest, softest kind of oblivion.

I don't remember how long we stayed there, her limp against the wall, arms and legs wrapped around me, my face buried in her shoulder and the most intimate part of myself buried within her, our rapid breathing slowing in time… but it wasn't long enough.


	21. Chapter 21

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

A/N: Sorry this was so long in coming. I'm finally happy with the way everything played out, so I hope you like it too! Next chapter, we have a sleepover! :) -giggles- Yeah, I'm excited to write it. ...Poor Grissom.

* * *

Despite my resignation that I deserved whatever disdain Sara's mother had for me, I was very nervous the next morning. I woke up well before Sara and spent the hour from five to six pacing her living room. I wanted to make breakfast, but we were meeting her for breakfast. Finally, at six thirty, I jumped into the shower, but as much as I tried to make it last, Sara's seven o'clock alarm had still not sounded when I got out.

I dried off and sorted through my suitcase as best I could without waking up Sara. …I wanted to dress nicely, to give a good impression, but it was also just breakfast. Certainly it would be strange to wear my suit when it was clear I wasn't going anywhere that would require a suit after the breakfast. …But jeans seemed like I didn't care. …I wanted her to know I was taking this seriously… taking the second chance her daughter had given me, seriously.

I settled on a pair of khaki's and a short-sleeved button down, thinking that this was nice without seeming… pretentious. I made coffee, fed Hank and let him out to pee, and then sat at her table, the newspaper in front of me neglected. I heard when she woke up—heard her alarm go off, and her low mumbling as she rolled over after turning it off, slowly waking up and getting her bearings.

…Sara was never, ever, more beautiful than when she woke up… her curls were loose around her head, her eyes deep and trusting and just slightly out of focus, her limbs long and languid and aching to be stretched. Her body was warm and soft and she was oh-so-responsive, having not been confined to desensitizing clothing all day… she would hum softly at the softest touch… moan under medium pressure… lost control when enough fervor were applied to the task of exploring her.

It was a Sara that most people never saw… a Sara who I felt was all mine. Anytime she looked disheveled, I was reminded of how many times I had woken to the irresistible sight and coaxed her into ecstasy simply because she never came the way she came when she was defenseless and contented and still half-asleep.

Hearing her wake made me want to move into the bedroom and distract her… calm myself… take my mind off the morning ahead of us. I remained glued to my seat instead, drinking coffee to occupy my hands but not tasting it, my fingers drumming on the table. I listened to her sit up, get out of bed… search for her robe and slide it over her shoulders, and then I followed the barely-there sound of feet on plush carpet as she moved into the hallway and into sight. She offered me a smile.

"Hey… You're up early. Already dressed and showered?"

"Yeah, I…" I realized my fingers were still drumming, and stopped them. "I… Just nervous, I guess."

She smiled, moving over and planting a very closed-mouth kiss on my lips as she hadn't brushed her teeth yet, regardless of how many times she'd kissed me first thing in the morning while in the throes of passion. "Don't be—she's going to love you. …Listen, I'll jump in the shower, and then we can go—even if we're early, it'll be better than making you sweat it out here."

I tried to chuckle and failed. She smiled, running her fingers through my hair affectionately and heading back to her bathroom.

She hurried, for my sake, but it still seemed to take forever… I didn't necessarily want to rush for it to happen, but… if it was going to, the waiting was do more harm than anything else. She looked beautiful, of course, wearing black slacks and a sleeveless blouse because she was heading in to work after breakfast. We went to sit in a diner, in a spot that was apparently predetermined—she waved to the hostess as she walked in and, despite the 'Please Wait To Be Seated' sign, Sara brushed past her and guided me into a booth by a window. I forced a smile, trying to calm my nerves.

"They know you, apparently."

She smiled. "My mom worked here, while she was going back to school, so we get some perks… free pie, a booth unofficially reserved once a week, free refills..."

I took her hand, kissing it softly and then just keeping it pressed tightly to my palm. "I love you."

She smiled, squeezing my hand. "I love you too. It's going to be fine, really."

"Sara! You're early!" A dark-haired woman slid into the booth across from us, and my stomach clenched at the unexpectedness of her arrival. She had appeared out of nowhere. "Here I thought I'd be waiting on you guys…" She turned her gaze on me. "Hello Gil."

It took every ounce of self control in me not to sputter in response. The woman was very… direct. I swallowed. "Hello Mrs. … Ms. …" I faltered, not knowing if she had kept the name of the husband she'd killed or not.

She smiled, seeming to understand. "Laura. I've heard so much about you, Gil."

"Me too." I said, feeling that I was being less than truthful. I had heard a lot about her in the last day or so, but the years I'd spent with Sara in Boston had given me very little information about the woman in front of me.

A waitress approached, taking drink orders and calling Laura and Sara by their names, and then everyone seemed to slip into their menus briefly, which was some relief. I just needed a minute to take the woman in. …She looked like Sara, but… not just an older version. There were distinct differences. I think, had I been looking for Sara's mother in a line up, I could have picked her out… she had the same cheek bones, the same eyes and the same dark hair—although hers was straight and beginning to show streaks of gray—and the same frame, except that Sara was taller than her mother. But her face was not shaped the same… her teeth lacked the gap that I found so utterly appealing…her nose was not remotely like Sara's.

I wished, suddenly, that I knew what Sara's father had looked like, so I could dissect her features between the two.

Laura laid her menu down and I followed suit. Sara was immediately after—I had the feeling that both women knew what they would order, but had been allowing me time. That was the type of thing Sara would do. "So you're my daughter's first love..."

I found this a strange way to describe myself. Certainly, I was that… but the term implied… a lack of seriousness or commitment. Not one-true-love, but just the first love… the first taste of the much more extreme emotion that was to come, in much more important relationships. I smiled anyway. "I am…. She's my first love too." I said, and the woman and I exchanged some understanding. I was telling her that I had never loved anyone before I met Sara… it went without saying that I hadn't loved anyone after. Who could have her and ever get over her?

It was also with slight discomfort that I assessed the woman's age. Sara's brother had been… what? Eight, nine years older? There was no way the woman before me was older than 55. I was 39 and Sara was 24. This woman was as many years older than me as I was older than Sara. It was… discomforting.

Sara smiled. "Gil's a supervisor at the number two lab in the country… it's gone up in ratings in large part because of his talent in forensics."

I blushed slightly, and Laura smiled at that more than at her daughter's words. "You must be very good at your work. …It'll be hard to give that up, I imagine…" She didn't finish her sentence, but she didn't need to. I could fill in the blanks, '...when you move to San Francisco to do right by my daughter.' …I couldn't say I entirely disagreed with her. Sara opened her mouth to speak, no doubt going to scold her mother, but I spoke over here.

"I've given up things far more precious in my life… it won't be easy, but it would be harder to live without Sara."

This, too, seemed to satisfy Laura. She smiled, and I felt Sara sigh softly beside me. Conversation came easier, after that… Sara talked with her mother about the shift she'd just worked—she was a nurse. I would have wondered at that, but Sara had explained that her mother had only been charged with manslaughter once she was out of the mental facility. She'd served only about a year of actual jail time. This was rather fortunate—most people didn't want to hire a nurse with a murder charge on her record, no matter what the circumstances.

Food was delivered as Sara told her mother about the cookie contest and how her girls had taken it upon themselves to protect her. She looked like she wanted to kiss the girls for their efforts and I tried not to take it too hard. If Sara were my daughter, I likely would have killed the asshole who had hurt her in the positively twisted manner I had.

Half-way through the meal the waitress was bringing Sara her free refill of orange juice when a small child slid out of the booth beside us quickly to retrieve a toy, causing the girl to trip. The orange juice flew, falling all over Sara's white blouse. Silence fell in the surrounding area as Sara blinked in surprise several times, orange liquid dripping from her curls. I came back to myself first.

"Oh, honey… here…" I dipped my napkin in water and quickly wiped the drops that had splashed onto her bare face, neck, and arms. She shook her head slowly. The waitress looked mortified.

"Oh my god, Sara… I'm so sorry! I… I didn't mean…" Sara shook her head again, offering a tentative smile, talking the waitress and the mother of the small child out of their apologies as she took up her own napkin and started dabbing at the ruined shirt. She sighed, glancing between us, once the attention had been deflected off of her.

"I, uh… I'm going to go wring this out in the bathroom sink." She slid out of the booth and moved out of sight, and I turned a nervous gaze on Laura. I would have gone to help Sara, but I could hardly go into the ladies room. Laura could have gone to help Sara, but… apparently she wanted to talk to me.

She set down her own napkin, which she had lifted to hand to Sara and never given her. "I was hoping I'd get a chance to talk to you alone, Gil."

I sighed, nodding slowly. "Okay…"

"…I know my daughter. I… I would be a hypocrite… to tell her I think she ought to be less forgiving. She's forgiven me a lot more than she's forgiven you…" She pursed her lips in a very Sara-like expression. "…I'll just say, then, that… I know why she has forgiven you, and I know better than to presume I could talk her out of it… but you had better know just how much a gift her forgiveness is. Sara… could have had you arrested… fired… your career over… and she still could. …Don't think that just because she's granted you absolution that you are in control again, because you're not."

I nodded, glancing at the closed door to the ladies room. "I… know that. I… I don't want to control Sara and… and I don't know that I ever wanted to. She's just so… amazing. So beautiful and vibrant and brilliant. Looking at her is like looking into the sun… you're blown away by the beauty and yet you can't ever look at the thing directly, because it's too bright and wonderful for your eyes to handle or your meager brain to comprehend. I… I'm really not a man who craves control in his relationships… It was meeting someone who was so clearly impossible to have, for all of those reasons and because she was too young, and a student, and… too good for me.

"…Finding out that she wanted me was the most intoxicating and frightening and overwhelming thing that had ever happened to me, and I didn't know what to do with it… More than that, I didn't know what I would do with myself if I allowed myself to stare into the sun despite my own limitations and found myself blind at nightfall, when the sun moved on to light other places and other lucky, lucky people..."

I sighed, looking at my hands, my ears flaming from revealing so much to a near stranger, but it was imperative that this woman understand. I forced myself to continue. "If… if you lived your whole life without the sun… and suddenly one day it burst over your horizon, striking you with warmth and light and giving life to your entire world… wouldn't you be afraid to lose it? Afraid to go back to the cold and dark? And if you saw a way to keep the sun as your own, forever… Wouldn't you be tempted?"

I swallowed, glancing at the woman, whose features seemed gentler… less stern, now. "I… I'm not saying it was right. A better man than I would have let the sun go… would have realized that part of that beauty was in being uncontained… not simply sitting, unmoving, in the sky… But can't you understand why it might take me a second time around to get it right with something so much greater than myself… something that gives me so much more than I ever had before I knew it existed?"

I met her eyes, then, and held them. She offered me a half-smile, and her voice came softly. "…As long as you do… get it right… this time around."

I nodded, slowly, and the woman turned back to her meal. It was not dismissive as she had been, somewhat, at the beginning of the meal. It was the silence of acceptance… of nothing more needing to be said. Sara returned to the table, her shirt unavoidably stained but at least a little drier, and conversation came easier. Laura smiled more… teased me on occasion… and when we parted ways, she even offered me a hug, telling me she was glad that her daughter was so loved.

Sara drove us home so she could change before heading into the office, glancing at me out of the side of her eyes as she weaved through traffic. "…When I was in the bathroom…"

I turned to look at her. "…Yes?"

She frowned a little. "My mother… and you… were both different… when I came back." I nodded, and she clucked her tongue. "What… what did she say to you?"

I smiled and took her hand in mine, running my thumb over the top, hoping to sooth her worries. "Nothing that should upset you, honey. She… wanted to make sure that I knew how lucky I was that I had a second chance with you and… I told her that I knew that better than anyone."

She raised an eyebrow. "…That was it?"

I smiled. "I might be paraphrasing a little…"

She snorted a laugh and shook her head. "Somehow, I have a feeling I'll never get the full story on this…"

I squeezed her hand, smiling at her laugh and chuckling too, thinking that this moment was worth everything we'd endured, to get to this point… thinking that I would spend another lifetime without the sun I would no longer try to tie down, just for another brief, shining, moment of warmth like this one.


	22. Chapter 22

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: As always, sorry for the delay and thank you so much for the reviews!

...This chapter makes me feel mean, but also all kinds of happy, so I hope you guys find humor in it too. I couldn't help it, I like to pick on Grissom. Also, I think he's kinda cute with a 'fro. :) More sleepover fun to come.

Also, I just found this funny, so I thought I'd share. The fiance, in a fit of sweetness :), thought he'd join the ff thing and try his hand at writing a story for something he likes--Zombie movies--even though he's never written anything before. A few days go by and he doesn't mention it, and I'd gotten all excited that he'd be doing something that I really like, with me. So I bring it up again and then he's thinking he doesn't want to do it anymore. ...I got to the point where I was begging him to write a Night of the Living Dead and CSI crossover with me, because I wanted him to do it so much.

...Yeah. I felt guilty though, because the first one I picture getting eaten (of the CSIs anyway) is Greg. And I heart Greg, so I thought that was pretty mean. :) Who do you think would be the first to be eaten?

Enjoy!

* * *

I was a little surprised how things had gone with my mom and Gil. I mean… I had warned her to be nice to him. …Threatened her, might me a more accurate phrasing. And she'd been really good—some of her comments were less than nice, but it could have been a lot worse. My mother was a very… direct… woman. She hadn't been that way when I was little, but she wasn't the same woman anymore, and I think she was glad of it. She told me, when we'd reconnected, that she'd spent years not speaking her mind, trying to avoid the negative outcomes. She was tired of avoiding things because she was afraid of them, and she was tired of not speaking because someone might not like what she had to say.

So the fact that she had obviously held herself back was… a relief. And the fact that she had hugged Gil before we left was… alarming.

I knew without asking that she wouldn't explain herself to me… and Gil's explanation hadn't offered any answers at all.

Still, things seemed to be looking up… Who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth? If she liked him and they got along, that would only make things easier.

I changed my shirt and called my boss to explain the mishap, and wrote Gil out a list of sleepover necessities. He dropped me off, kissing me softly, and I rushed through my paperwork, excited to be done for the week, although I knew there was no way I could get out as early as I had the Friday before. I called Gil around two thirty and he came and picked me up. There were no bags in the back seat, so he'd already been to the store and back home by the looks of things.

I planted a kiss on his lips as he drove me home, thinking that he'd gathered a rather sufficient knowledge of San Francisco in the short time he'd been in town. I frowned, doing some quick math in my head. …How long did we have left? It was Friday, and he had vacation time covered through the next Sunday. A week and two days. …After the girls' sleepover, we'd have to do some talking and figure this thing out…

It was a quiet night in—I grilled burgers out on my little balcony, which impressed Gil for some reason, and I even presented Hank with one of the burgers when we sat down to eat. He licked my hand in appreciation and dug in, which Gil shook his head. "You see—it's things like that that've made him so fat." He turned to look at the boxer, who wasn't even standing to eat—he was laying down with his foot dish between her front legs while he ate. "You hear that? We're putting you on a diet!"

I giggled and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Don't be so hard on him… it's your fault he's so fat in the first place."

Gil shook his head, tickling me when I turned to start our meal, and the evening progressed peacefully. We slept in, the next morning—Gil especially needed it after being up at dawn the day before—and let ourselves get ready for a day with the girls slowly—we showered together, taking far longer than was absolutely necessary. Gil's explanation, as he held me against the shower wall and kissed me senseless, was that we'd have to abstain for close to twenty-four hours… so we needed to do what we could to tide ourselves over. …Which, at the time, made a whole lot of sense.

We dressed in jeans and t-shirts and piled back into my car to pick up the girls, as before. They were all dressed a little more casually this time—jean shorts and shirts or tank tops—they liked to show off when we met with the big groups, especially if I'd taken them shopping recently, which I had. I tried not to make a habit of it, because I didn't want foster parents getting upset or feeling like I was stepping on toes, but every once and a while I thought it was important for them to have something new and special not because they needed it, but just because.

As always, Jill was first and slid into the backseat with a "Hey Sara! …Hi Griss."

Gil offered her a smile—she was his favorite—"Hi Jill."

She's more shy than the other girls, so as I drive, Gil tries to draw her out more. "Sara says you girls are coming over to cook for me, tonight."

She quirks a smile and blushes a little. "Sara wouldn't say that—she's a feminist."

He snorts a laugh and I grin, meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror and winking. Gil shakes his head. "That doesn't mean the three of you girls are… I'll even let you clean house. Give Hank a bath."

She's giggling now, enjoying the attention of a positive male role model. "Who's Hank?"

He looks indignant, glancing between me and her. "You never told her about Hank?!" He fixes his gaze on her. "You mean to tell me that Miss Ultra Feminist Sara didn't tell you that she's got a six year old child at home?"

She frowned, her lips puckering. "I've been to Sara's house. She doesn't have a kid."

"I don't know… Hank's pretty big to not be real. What would you say, Sara… a hundred and fifty pounds?"

I rolled my eyes. "He's not that big, Gil. I don't think he could walk if he was…"

Jill crossed her arms, not wanting to admit that she wasn't sure what to believe, and I pulled up outside Alexis' house.

The banter continued while I simply smiled, never having imagined how playful Gil could be with young girls. Children, yeah… I just had a feeling that he would have a soft spot for kids… but pre-teen girls were an entirely different animal, yet he seemed to delight in teasing them, and they were grinning by the time I'd picked up Kaitlin and taken them all back to my place to drop off their sleeping bags and overnight stuff.

Hank barked before they made it to the top of the stares, startling the girls before they burst into giggles, Jill leveling Gil with a frightening glare. "Hank's a dog?!"

He grinned. "I told you she had a baby."

The girls piled in, dropping their items right in the doorway to kneel before the overweight boxer who looked ecstatic to have this much attention on him. His tail was wagging and he was practically climbing into their laps he was trying so hard to lick their faces.

I slid an arm around Gil's waist and kissed his cheek, feeling overwhelmingly happy, before urging the girls to bring their stuff into the living room and asking what they wanted to do with the day. I was not entirely surprised when they picked the beach—they wanted to continue their surfing lessons. A glance at Gil and his accepting shrug was all they needed before digging in their bags to pull out swimming suits before rushing into my bedroom to change.

I grinned at Gil. "You sure you're okay with this? You know you can stay home with Hank if you want to…"

He shook his head. "And deprive Hank of his new best friends? How could I?"

I giggled and kissed him. "I'm gonna go pack a bag—towels and sunscreen. Anything special you need?"

He shook his head. "I'll pack a lunch and a bag for Hank. You just worry about the girls."

Another smile and kiss later, and I was hurrying back to my bedroom and knocking on the door. There was silence followed by an explosion of giggles and Kaitlin's confident, lilting voice coming through the door. "Who is it?"

I rolled my eyes. "It's the big bad wolf, let me in…"

They giggled again, Alexis saying something rather indignantly about not having hair on her chin, and the door swung upon. Kaitlin was dressed already—in a bikini printed with a British flag and 'Girl Power!' spelled out in fake little rhinestones over her butt. She was brushing her long, wavy blonde hair in front of my mirror, working on putting it into a high ponytail. I shut the door behind me and moved to my closet to drag down a beach bag, glancing at Jill and Alexis, who had pulled their t-shirts over themselves while the door was open.

Alexis was in a tankini, white, with black zebra stripes across it. I'd tried to talk her out of it—the whole animal print thing really wasn't me—but she had fallen in love with it, and I had said they could get whatever they wanted that still provided full coverage. They'd laughed at me for that one. Jill's swimsuit was bright blue—a tube top and boy shorts, and fairly modest by comparison—that made her eyes brighter and her hair darker.

I smiled at my girls, telling them to come out when they were ready, and slid out the doorway to pack what turned out to be several totes. By the time I'd fit in five beach towels and the three we'd bought earlier in the week just for Hank, sunscreen and books for Jill and Gil and I, and a portable CD player with two sets of headphones for Alexis and Kaitlin, not to mention all the sunglasses and other necessary accessories the girls passed to me as they were getting ready, I was certain we'd each walk onto the beach carrying a full bag.

I wasn't wrong—the girls each took a tote, Gil carried his picnic and a cooler, and I took my board and a small bowl for Hank to have fresh water. Hank sat on the floor between Gil's knees while we drove with the girls in the back, my surf board on top of the car, and the trunk full of bags. Apparently I needed to invest in a minivan.

Still though, it was nice. We managed to find a beach that wasn't completely overrun by tourists and laid our blankets down away from the masses of people. The girls were immediately out of their jean shorts and tank tops, running full-pelt towards the water, Hank whimpering on his leash because he wanted to chase them. Gil let him off his leash, helped me set up our area and fill up Hank's bowl from the ice already melting in the cooler, and then we were both stripping down and walking much more slowly down to the water's edge.

Hank liked the water more with kids in it, and we had a lot of fun—We played Marco Polo (Gil needing to stop the game to tell us everything he knew about Marco Polo), and Chicken, the girls climbing onto Gil or I's shoulders and the third one playing referee, and I took turns taking them out on the smaller board we'd rented, guiding them through what I'd taught them the last time. They fell down a lot, but they were all really good about getting back on and trying again, and by the time we left, each of them had managed to stay standing up for at least a little while.

We had our picnic and the girls teased Gil about his swimming trunks, which were black and covered in grasshoppers—honestly, is there an Entomologists 'R' Us that I'm not aware of? Where does he find this stuff?—and then they decided they wanted to sunbathe and 'work on their tans,' which was twelve-year-old-girl for "I want to seem older than I am." I gave Gil a knowing smile and dragged him out into the waves to start his first lesson.

…He was a lot harder to teach than the girls, and he didn't take falling down with as much grace, but I figured that he was doing his best not to get upset. He wasn't used to not being good at things.

Everyone was exhausted by the time we packed up and headed home, already anticipating supper, despite the picnic lunch we'd had on the beach. The girls had a little color on their faces, but had mostly managed to not get burned. They helped us wash Hank again, much to Gil's chagrin—"He's a dog! He doesn't need a bath every time he gets dirty!"—and then I scrubbed the tub out so they could take turns taking a shower while we waited for the pizza to arrive. I showered while they ate, so Gil wouldn't me left trying to find a way to entertain them, and they put in a movie after supper while I cleaned up and Gil took his own turn.

The problem was that the movie was Clueless—did you expect anything else?—and about halfway through, Gil came to sit down with them and watch it, his eyebrows rising higher and higher the longer he watched. He glanced at me letting the brows drop to narrow his eyes. "…Are you sure they should be watching this?" He mouthed to me, and I laughed.

"They're fine." I mouthed back, and he frowned and leaned back into the couch, clearly disagreeing with my assessment. They were twelve, living in California, and all of them foster children. They were no strangers to alcohol and sex, and I wasn't an advocate of sheltering children more than necessary.

When the movie ended, Gil sat up, frowning. "You know… this storyline seems… so familiar. It reminds me of…"

"Emma?" Jill suggested, and Gil smiled. I did too—it was the first time I had seen him struggle to name a book.

"Yes! I knew it seemed familiar…"

"Oh, here we go…" Kaitlin muttered, Alexis giggling, and I intervened. The girls loved each other, but preteen girls were often mean without thinking about it. It came with the territory.

"Alright—what do you girls want to do next?"

I wished, a moment later, that I hadn't asked that question.

At first they wanted to show Gil their Spice Girl dance… which was fine, except they wanted me to jump in as Sporty Spice like I usually did… when I didn't have a boyfriend watching. And then, of course, it was only a short leap to saying they needed to dress up before their performance… and a half an hour was spent dressing and putting on far too much make up.

Luckily, I got the easy Spice Girl. I put on a pair of windbreakers and a tank top and pulled my hair in a ponytail and then focused on the girls—I considered not doing it with them… but if Gil was going to be a permanent part of my life, chances were he'd see this side of me eventually. Better now, when I was prepared, than later. Jill was always Baby Spice, despite her dark hair—I put it up in high pony tails for her—and Kaitlin was Posh Spice, because for some reason she saw herself as a fashion expert. She borrowed a pair of my heels and made her best sexy-pouty face, while I curled Alexis' hair as best I could… she was Ginger Spice (The one I called Slutty Spice in my head).

I'm sure my face was bright red by the time we got out into the living room to 'perform.' Luckily, Alexis decided it made more sense to embarrass the only boy than it did to embarrass me. They pointed out that we were missing a Scary Spice, and Gil had curly hair, just like her. …I don't know why Gil let them do it, but half an hour later, his curls had been teased out into quite the impressive afro and he was arguing with Kaitlin about whether pink lipstick was really his color.

…We never did the dance—the girls finished their make over and then decided it was time for ice cream, and the five of us were changing and washing our faces so we could jump in the car and go buy some ice cream before anything closed. I'm certain Gil was relieved… and I was too, although it would have been rather funny to see the girls try to teach him the dance…


	23. Chapter 23

Disclaimer: I do not own.

A/N: The rest of the sleepover. Hope you enjoy. :) I'll try to keep the updates coming faster now, as we're getting close to their expiration date, and they need to figure out what they're going to do.

Thanks for all the reviews, I love them!

Also... So I just watched 'Cousins' the other day. I'm trying to branch out in my William Petersen exposure. ...It seems like he's always a dick when he isn't Grissom. :( That makes me sad. ...Anyone else?

Jelly--I read the Zombie story. I see that Greg is more of a survivor than I gave him credit for, although I'm not certain he would have survived if it hadn't been for Sara and Grissom. :) I tried to get the boy to read it with me, thinking it would serve as an enticement.... it didn't. He just asked me to tell him how it ended. :(

* * *

You will not ever hear me admit it, but… the sleepover wasn't so bad.

I mean, it's a little emasculating to get a make-over in front of your girlfriend. There's no arguing that point—it was a blow to my ego as I was granted bigger hair than I'd ever had in my life—until I caught Sara's eyes as she watched me teasing the girls while they did so. I mean, yeah, it wasn't my favorite activity… but the girls were having fun, and for some reason—interfering and nagging as they were—I really liked them. And the way Sara looked at me in my indulgence… those girls could have had me dressed up and dancing with them, if she'd only look at me like that.

It was… awed. Surprised and awed and completely in love. It was the kind of look she used to give me—the kind of complete adoration that I wasn't sure I'd really been witness to in six years. I mean, she still looked at me amorously… but this was more intense, and I would have put on a British accent and decried against male oppression for hours for that look. So it was easy to relax and slip into the game, because she clearly didn't see me as less of a man because of it.

I argued whether something was my shade—whether that color wouldn't make me look like I was giving it away for free—whether my hair would keep its volume with the humidity this time of year, and the girls giggled senselessly, which made me happy, not just because it would make Sara happy, but because I wanted the girls to be happy as well.

…Despite taking all of this in stride, I was rather relieved when ice cream took precedence over anything else, and it looked like Sara felt the same way. The girls instructed me how to use make up remover and I did, for the first time in my life, while Sara stood back and laughed. Sara went to pick up the living room a bit and I let Hank out to pee while the girls changed out of their Spice Girl outfits which Sara would never have let them leave the house in. I had given her a raised eyebrow when they came out in skimpy shirts, short skirts, and too-high-heels, and she'd just shrugged.

If we had a little girl, there would be a conversation about this.

The trip to get ice cream was eventful—the girls requested several things I had not expected. They wanted to go across the bridge, why I don't know, so we went across and back, and then they wanted to go down some of the steeper hills San Francisco was famous for. They all put their arms in the air as Sara drove them down just a little faster than I was comfortable with, and I realized that I would be here for at least one more Saturday. …Maybe we should take them to an amusement park. I loved roller coasters, and the girls probably would—I mean, going down a big hill in a car wasn't the same, but they seemed to be living vicariously through said action, so it was worth a try. …Maybe I could even find a park with fireworks… we could all pile on the Ferris wheel when they went off. Sara and I had done that, back in Boston… it was one of my favorite memories with her.

Finally, we actually stopped to buy ice cream—Jill had a complicated chocolate concoction, Kaitlin's was full of caramel and nuts, Alexis' was cookie dough and sugar—sprinkles, gummy bears, you name it—Sara got strawberry ice cream with strawberry chucks… I was happy with something much simpler. Mint chocolate chip. After our kiss on the boardwalk, it would forever be my favorite. Although Sara did convince me to get brownie chucks added, which I grudgingly agreed was a good addition.

By the time we made it home, they were only half-done with their ice creams but wired like crazy on sugar, and they were throwing out any myriad of ideas for how to spend the rest of the night. A horror movie marathon, truth or dare, something called MASH which did not refer to the old TV show, though I couldn't figure out more than that, and fortune telling. …Girl sleepovers were much more complicated than the sleepovers I'd had as a little boy. We'd eat supper, go out in a tent in the backyard and sneak out of it to look for bugs, and fall asleep laughing and farting and, as we got older, talking about girls.

…The last one, as least, seemed to be a theme here. They never stopped talking about boys.

MASH turned out to be a game played on paper—Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House—I guess. But there were any number of crazy categories in which you put four options—the man you would marry, the job you would work, the car you would drive, the college you would go to, the city you would live in, where you would get married and honeymoon and what kind of pets you would have and what you would name them. …What was the point of living life if you could plan it all out in a game of chance as a twelve year old, right?

It was boring until the girls did one for Sara—and decided to fill out her choices for her.

"Okay," Kaitlin said, pulling the notebook closer to herself and taking on an air of authority that made Jill roll her eyes and Alexis sit up and listen. "Sara—name four guys you'd like to marry."

Sara smirked and glanced at me out of the side of her eyes. "Antonio Banderas. George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Mel Gibson."

Jill giggled, Alexis huffed, and Kaitlin rolled her eyes. "_No_, they have to be real people." She wrote as she spoke. "Griss, hot-Jordan…" she looked up at Alexis and Jill. "Who was that other guy? …Sam." She wrote down, and then Alexis offered another suggestion.

"That guy in college—the one who gave her hives. What was his name?" I grit my teeth. I could handle them bringing up recent dates, but not—

"Ken." Jill provided promptly. "But she hated him—put down Hank."

My gaze turned to Sara quickly. Had that meant that she liked him more than she'd let on to me? She blushed, but Kaitlin took charge again. "No—it'll be funnier if she ends up with Ken. Okay… places you want to live, Sara?"

She cleared her throat. "San Francisco… Berkeley…" She got a hesitant smile on her face. "Costa Rica… Las Vegas."

The girls all frowned at this, looking between us. Jill was first. "Isn't… that where Griss lives?"

They all turned their frowning faces to us, and I felt uncomfortable. Sara cleared her throat. "You made me pick four places—I can't pick San Fran for every one, can I?"

Kaitlin and Alexis seemed appeased, though Jill did not, and they moved on—having Sara list cars and numbers of children and anything else they could think of and going through the random process of determining her future. I didn't pay attention, making a detour to the bathroom and to get a bottle of water in the kitchen, rather than see Sara end up with someone else, even on paper, and by the time I came back they were pulling out pajamas to change into, so I made myself scarce again until Sara called that I could come back out.

They were sitting in a circle with an empty spot beside Sara for me, which made me a little nervous. I sat down to a chorus of giggles—the sound barely fazing me anymore—and Kaitlin turned to Alexis with that confident air once again. "Truth or Dare."

Alexis glanced at Sara and I. "Truth."

Kaitlin smirked. "Did Jake kiss you last week after practice?" I took in Sara's bewildered face and realized that this was news to her as well. Alexis blushed.

"…Yes."

They all screamed. I mean it—even Sara let out a whoop and hugged. "Oh, Alex, tell me about it!"

…I was feeling more out-of-my-element than normal, and I wondered if this wasn't a moment that I shouldn't be a part of. Alexis was blushing, but she looked happy.

"Well… he was all sweaty, you know, 'cause he'd just finished playing basketball, and he said he'd change quick and then walk me home, 'cause I'd stayed to watch him. And he came out in a tank top and shorts and… he looked so cute!"

Kaitlin wrinkled her nose. "Did he wipe the sweat off?"

"No." Alexis said with a certain dreamy quality in her voice, but Jill wrinkled her nose too.

"So…?" Sara prompted.

"So we were walking and… and I was telling him how good he did and he said we should play together sometime… he'd show me how to shoot free throws… and when I giggled and said it'd be fun… he looked at me out of the side of his eye and then just turned and kissed me, really fast."

I smiled softly, imagining the young man in question's nervousness. It hadn't been described, but I was sure he'd been trembling… anticipating how exactly to kiss her for long, painstaking minutes before he did so. Kait and Jill giggled and Sara smiled too.

"Did you kiss him back?"

Alexis blushed. "Well, it was over really fast… but I smiled at him and… then he held my hand until we got to my house."

Kait and Jill bounced and squealed some more while Sara laughed and Alexis blushed. No, my sleepovers hadn't been like this…

Alexis turned her gaze on the rest of us speculatively. "Sara. Truth or Dare."

Sara smiled. "Truth."

All the girls giggled. "Who was your first kiss?"

She smiled a little too fondly for my tastes. "Jeff Biel. He was one of my…" she stopped, looking at the girls in surprise. "Uh… friends."

I didn't believe her, and I knew they didn't either. They goaded it out of her—a foster brother. She then promptly informed each of the girls that they were not allowed to kiss anyone they lived with so help her god. The girls laughed, and I did too, and Sara turned her gaze to Kaitlin.

"Kait. Truth or Dare?"

She tossed her blonde hair. "Dare."

Sara smirked, passing her a phone from nowhere. Had she planned that. "Call Kevin."

Kaitlin's eyes got wide. "What? …Sara… I don't know what to say."

She smiled. "Say 'hi.' Talk about school… Choir… and then say, 'Oh, I have Jill on the other line. Gotta go.'"

I raised my eyebrows. Sara was devious. At Kaitlin's look of disbelief, she explained. "Boys your age are just as nervous or more nervous than you are—if he likes you, the best way to get him to do something about it is to give him confidence, which is why you call him. You talk to him like you're just talking to anyone… calling a friend… so it gives nothing away. And then, you end the conversation, choosing someone else… leaving him wanting more."

Kaitlin, unexpectedly, turned her gaze on me. "…Is that… how you would interpret that? If… Sara called you… if you weren't… together?"

I smiled. "Probably, yes… At our age, it's a little different, but… for the most part, she's right. Give him confidence and then take it away. It'll have any guy drooling after you."

So Kaitlin picked it up and dialed a number she apparently had memorized despite never having called it before, looking positively petrified as she whispered, "It's ringing!"

Someone answered. "Hi, uh… Is Kevin there?" Jill and Alexis giggled. "Oh… okay, thank you!" She hung up, looking positively giddy, which threw me off. Why was she happy that she hadn't talked to him?

"Well?" Sara asked, and Kaitlin flushed.

"His mom answered. …She said he was in the shower!"

Jill and Alexis screamed and giggled, Sara laughed and shook her head, and I wondered vaguely if I was going to have use of my ears after this night.

They settled down, and Kaitlin looked around us again. "Jill." The way she said it was practically predatory, and the glance Jill gave the phone still in Kaitlin's hands was enough to explain her choice.

"Truth."

"Do you… have a crush on your foster brother, Tom?"

Her face turned fire engine red and the girls laughed, but Sara frowned. She had been serious that she didn't want her girls liking anyone who lived in the same house. She didn't have to answer yes, and by the time her face had returned to a somewhat normal shade, the laughing had died down too. She looked at me, and I suddenly felt nervous.

More nervous than I would have felt if any of the others had looked at me.

"Griss—Truth or Dare?"

I swallowed. "Truth."

The girls hushed as Jill thought deeply for a moment. Then she looked right up into my eyes, and I felt pierced by her gaze. "…Were you Sara's first time?"

I coughed, surprised by the question, chancing a glance at Sara whose eyes looked sharp. She hadn't anticipated this question. I couldn't tell by the look on her face if she wanted me to answer. I blinked several times, and then drew in a deep breath. "…Yes."

Kaitlin and Alexis offered a chorus of 'Aww' and Sara blushed.

"Was it romantic?" Kaitlin asked.

"Did it hurt?" Alexis worried.

"Was she your first, too?" Jill frowned.

Sara sighed, leveling them with a gaze. "It… was very romantic. He got me a hotel room… filled with roses, with rose petals on the bed… it… it was wonderful, and… it did hurt, but not for long. …No, I was not his first. He's fifteen years old than me. ...And, we're done with this game now."

The girls rose up in protest, but Sara waved them off. "Pick a movie and get your sleeping bags out. I'll make up popcorn."

The sleepover was uneventful after that. At midnight we left the girls to their own devices, Sara warning them that she'd been out in an hour to make sure they were asleep, although I don't know if she actually did—I fell asleep well before that. Sleepovers, apparently, are exhausting. I made breakfast for them the next morning and they ate in the living room, watching cartoons, until Sara had them all pack up to go home.

…I had fun, but I was relieved to drop them off and go back to having just the two of us. …If we did have children, I prayed it wouldn't be female triplets. There was no way I could do this every day.


	24. Chapter 24

Disclaimer: I don't own them. :)

A/N: A few things about the chapter--I know that this is a little... okay, a lot... unrealistic. I know that, but I made the situation they were in too hard. In order to be together--and this is supposed to be fluffy, after all--they would have to sacrifice too much. So, this is where I ask my readers for a little willing suspense of disbelief. Brass might say I just jumped the shark, but Grissom would ask what the hell that meant anyway, so I don't feel so bad about it. :)

As always, thanks for all the reviews. This will be my last update for the weekend, we're going to my parents' house for Easter, and I doubt I'll have time to write. But, I'll be back Monday and I hope everyone who celebrates Easter has a happy one!

Now--this is where I feel I must vent about the episode last night, because my fiance couldn't even stay awake to watch it end. :( _So, if you are unspoiled, don't read._ :)-- Okay, first of all... if Catherine can shoot a serial killer in the first season to save Grissom, who she isn't dating, why is it that she can't shoot a drug dealer who seems more than willing to kill anyone who knocks on his hotel door and who has a gun pointed at her boyfriend? What was with the weird, sneaking, jump-attack thing? If you're not going to shoot to kill, at least incapacitate him. Shoot him in the foot or something! ...Catherine is like the picture of a strong, intelligent, confident, independent woman, and for some reason they decided that after ten years of her being that person, she ought to play the stupid woman who needs her boyfriend to rescue her so she can bat her pretty blue eyes at him and say "My hero!"?! What the fuck? ...Also, I thought Nick and Greg were adorable! :) Nick was like... "Hi girlies... Oh, no, wait... No, I don't want to smell your panties. Eww!" ...And Greg was like--"Hey... PLUR... I know how to ask for drugs at raves... look at my cute hat!" :)

...Yeah, I don't know how he slept through my giggles. I mean, I was bouncing I was so excited to finally have a new episode to watch. ...Dumb boys. :)

* * *

I had my head in his lap, my feet up on the armrest of the couch, and an old movie was on… I recognized the actor as Clark Gable, though I couldn't name the film. I just knew that Gil liked it… His eyes were intent on the screen, the only indication that he even knew I was still present were his fingers gliding through my hair. After the sleepover, we'd both been rather exhausted. We'd curled up on the couch, talking softly, reveling in being able to touch one another freely again, and somewhere along the line I'd fallen asleep.

I didn't know if he had too, but he was awake now, his lips silently moving in time with the lines as the characters spoke them. I smiled softly, wondering if he knew yet that I was awake. I slowly stretched out my limbs, keeping my eyes locked on him, and though his gaze didn't flicker down to me once, when I lay still again, his lips stopped their task and he licked them kind of nervously.

"I… I'll move to San Francisco. We… we can live here or… or, if you wanted, we… could get a house. I…" He swallowed, his eyes glued on the screen but no longer following the characters movements. "I don't know how much you're ready for, and I won't push you… If you want me to get my own apartment and… take this slow… see what it turns into… I'm okay with that. I just… I don't want this to end over… geography."

My lips parted in surprise, and after a moment I sat up, as he still hadn't looked at me. I took the remote and turned the TV off, but his eyes remained fixed. I frowned. "…Gil, honey… Look at me."

He turned his reluctant gaze to me. I saw… uncertainty, there, and I wasn't sure why. Was he uncertain about what I wanted, or… what he wanted? I bit my bottom lip.

"…You don't want to leave Vegas."

His eyes confirmed it, but I waited for him to speak. He drew in a slow breath, his eyes flickering away from me and then back again, as if remembering my request. "…But I will."

I nodded, slowly. "I, uh… I'm afraid that… You'll move here, for me, and… you'll be unhappy." The look he leveled at me had me rushing to explain. "No, I mean… not with me, but… I'm afraid you'll be dissatisfied with life here, in general. You won't like the job or the city or… the condo. You're already afraid of my friends, and Hank needs a backyard, and… If we're staying in town, it's silly to sell the condo for at least a few more years so we can get our money out of it, especially with all the renovations I've been doing. I mean…"

I sighed, feeling myself turn away from him this time. "I have this whole… system here and… and if we stay here, it won't be building a life together, it would be… squeezing you into the life plan I already have. …Is that really fair? And then… if you do hate it and you are dissatisfied and you do feel like I'm just pushing you into the empty space in my life… won't you be unhappy? Sooner or later, won't you come to resent me and then… Where does that leave us?"

His eyes were wide—I don't think he knew what to do with my emotional outburst of what-if's. He shook his head slight. "Are you… What are you saying? You want to move to Vegas with me? Or…"

I frowned, thinking of my girls… Jill who so needs to feel like she's not the only one of her kind and Kaitlin whose home life is not as secure as it ought to be, even in foster care, and Alexis who needs equal helpings of confidence and restraint to curb her self-destructive tendencies. "I… will."

He nodded, knowingly. "But?"

I sighed. "But I don't want to. …I just… I'll feel so guilty, leaving the girls. I know that… that they'll find another mentor and they'll probably be just fine, but… If there's one thing I remember from foster care, it's… that nothing had permanence. I could survive leaving the homes that were good and I could survive changing schools and losing the teachers who made me feel important and competent, because I had learned that nothing lasted. …Anyone who leaves you, when you view the world the way those girls do… it doesn't mean much, because it's the norm. …It's the people who stick around—who make an effort to be permanent—that really have an influence."

"…And if you move with me, and something happens to one of the girls, you'd never forgive yourself. …Or me, for that matter."

I looked up at him in surprise, my eyes narrowed. I didn't think his statement was entirely fair… though I also couldn't bring myself to disagree either. I most certainly wouldn't forgive myself.

When I didn't respond, he shuffled his feet a little. "…Are… your girls… the only thing stopping you?"

I nodded, slowly. "Yeah… I mean, I don't necessarily want to leave my job, but… it's not something I couldn't live with. And my mom and I can survive by talking on the phone on Friday mornings instead. …My friends are mostly from work." I had a thought, and raised an eyebrow. "What's keeping you in Vegas?"

"The lab." He responded, his voice seeming… sad. He was trying to hide it, but just the thought of giving up the lab had him positively… despondent. "Catherine has been… the only real friend I've had in… what feels like a lifetime. Her daughter is like a niece to me, and… Nick and Warrick… They just show so much promise. I… I mean, it feels… strange, to say this, but… it's almost… paternal. I… They're the reason that I'm even functioning, again. After… I left… I was a mess. It's only been the last six months that they've been there that I've… felt alive, again. I feel on top of the world with each of their successes… I… Their triumphs are my triumphs and their failures are my failures. I feel so… such… I…"

He sighs, impatient at his own inability to express himself, but I get it. He loves them. He loves them like sons and he wants to be around to watch them grow, not into adults, but into their own professional selves. He loves them like I love my girls.

…I could never ask him to give them up.

I sigh, softly. "…Maybe we… could do this… long-distance."

He lets out a huff. "No. I… Sara, I feel like… life I've already wasted so much time with you. …Long-term, a long-distance relationship isn't a relationship. I… At some point, there has to be a place that is 'home' and… If we want a family… we'll have to choose one place or the other. It… a long-distance relationship isn't a choice. It's avoiding making one. …I'll move here. It… it's fine."

"No. …I can't ask you to do that, Gil."

"You're not asking me, I'm offering."

"Well I'm refusing your offer. …There has to be… some other way..."

He shakes his head in frustration and the conversation dwindles, leaving us each silent and uncomfortable, the air around us thick with the impossibility of our situation, stewing in our own thoughts. Eventually he gets up to turn lights on, the setting sun casting the room into shadow, and asks what I'd like to eat… He moves into the kitchen, but I don't respond. When he comes back around the corner of the kitchen, catching my eye, I look down at my feet.

"…I'll move to Vegas, Gil. Really… I… I would never forgive myself if… I made you move here."

He watches me for a long moment and I feel the tension building up again inside my stomach, making me feel queasy. How on earth will I tell them that I'm leaving them? He sets down the dish towel that had hung over his shoulder and moves closer to me.

"Why… haven't the girls been adopted? I mean… you said they're in stable homes…"

I frown, wondering at the change of topic, but my head is pounding and the effort to question far outweighs the effort to answer. "Stable, yes, but… they don't have any interest in adopting. I… It's… less common for people to want to adopt than it is for people to want to foster…"

"…So, if someone wanted to adopt the girls… technically, they could."

I frowned again, gritting my teeth. I didn't want to snap at him, but his questions seemed so pointless and they were certain painful. I hated to think I wouldn't be around to make sure they were being adopted by parents who were… deserving… and safe… and loving. "Yes, technically." There… that wasn't all that rude. "Why?"

I heard him shuffling his feet again and I opened my eyes against the light that had been exacerbating the headache to see the anxious look on his face. "…Why, Gil?"

He glanced at me. "…Maybe… we should adopt the girls… and move to Vegas."

I actually flinched, his words shocked me so much. …Did he have any idea what he was saying? …How complicated one adoption could be, let alone three? …How… unlikely such a thing would be, even if we didn't have plans to leave the state immediately? …Did he have even the smallest concept of how much time would be involved in parenting three troubled girls through their teenage years? The man had absolutely lost his mind.

"…Are you crazy?"

He frowned, clearly expecting a myriad of responses, but not this one. "…No. I… I'm just looking at the only solution. You won't be able to leave them without hating yourself, but you'll blame yourself if I leave the lab behind as well… and more important than either of those, I won't live without you anymore. I can't. …So, if you're willing to move to Vegas… I'm willing to adopt your girls…"

I huffed. "Gil… it's not that simple. It… Do you have any idea how hard it will be to raise three teenage girls, assuming we could even get the adoption? I mean… this will take… months of paperwork… background checks… they might not let us have all of them, or… hell, Gil, they might not let us have any."

He frowned. "We're both well-educated, financially-secure adults who are respected in their careers. …No criminal records or outstanding warrants…"

"Not married, don't live in the same city, haven't dated in six years, I'm only twenty-four…"

He shrugged. "We're moving to the same city, you're mature for your age, and they don't need to know everything about our past. We work in the same field… there's no reason to believe we couldn't have had a relationship for a long time… just, not when I was your teacher, of course."

I rolled my eyes. "Even so… we're not married, and we want to take them out of the state. It'd be this huge transition and this huge responsibility—why would they give that to people who aren't in what they would consider a 'stable' relationship?"

"…Well, maybe we should get married."


	25. Chapter 25

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: So I know that it's short, but I more or less implied to you lovely readers that I'd have an update up today after the long weekend and this is all I have time for. Back to school tomorrow. :) Hopefully I'll be able to get Thursday up tomorrow sometime, either during the day or early evening. I'm excited for all the fluffy fluff that's coming! Hehe.

Thanks, as always, for all the reviews. They mean so very much to me! I hope everyone had a great Easter!

Jelly--Did you watch the episode? I'm interested to hear your take on it after your review. :)

Oh, and go Duke! (The fiance is cheering against them, and they're his closest sister's favorite team. So I'm doing my best to irritate him...)

* * *

I watched as she sputtered and her jaw dropped, uncertain what to do with my proposal. Her eyes met mine and held them and then she was drawing in a deep breath. "Gil… I… You… Maybe we should think about this."

I searched her eyes, and then shook my head. "Sara, honey… If you're not sure… if you need time… I'll give you all the time in the world. But… I don't need any time. I don't need to think about this. I've been in love with you for years… I've been in love with you for as long as I've known you." I moved over from the kitchen, back to the couch where I'd left her and moved onto one knee. "I… I know I didn't do this the right way. I know I don't have a ring and that… that this isn't the proposal you deserve… but I love you, Sara Sidle. I love you and I will always love you and… and I'll do whatever it takes to spend the rest of my life trying to make you as happy as you make me. …Marry me."

She swallowed, and tears were swimming in her eyes, and then she swallowed and smiled and blinked rapidly, trying to force herself to speak. "I... Yes. …Yes."

I blinked, in utter disbelief. "Yes?"

She laughed a little, wiping at her eyes, a big smile tearing across her face. "Yes."

I shook my head, disbelieving that Sara Sidle—the most amazing woman I had ever known—was actually agreeing to spend her life with me. To be mine, and let me be hers, forever. Her hands found my cheeks, pulling me into a kiss, and I was lost. Any thoughts of dinner were lost in our mutual need to become one again and again and again, until there was no longer any strength left in us. I had never been so happy.

We slept for a while, but woke again a little after ten and slipped into pajamas to walk hand in hand, not wanting to separate entirely for anything, out to the kitchen to find something to eat. And we sat at the kitchen table over leftovers—Pizza and Chinese food and a pasta dish she'd made earlier in the week. It was an odd assortment and we were eating at an odd time of night, but nothing felt strange. There was an inexplicable sense of rightness in even the smallest of things.

And we talked. We agreed that we'd tried to get the girls before we made any permanent decisions about where we were living. I made a call to Catherine, telling her I needed more time and enduring her ribbing about whether I was ever coming back as well as her genuine complaints that she was hounded by questions when I did this. Finally, after a moment, I sighed.

"Catherine… I, uh… I'm engaged. So I… need some time to figure things out. Tell whoever is concerned that and it should get them off your back."

I hung up, choosing not to listen to several minutes of stunned disbelief before beginning the third degree. Sara laughed at me and reached for the phone. "Well, I guess I'd better call my mother and give her the news…"

I grinned. "I'll have to call mine tomorrow… She'll be asleep by now. …I'll have to get the ring from her, too."

She turned to me in surprise, pausing in the middle of dialing her mother's cell phone number. "…Ring? You… already have a ring?"

I smiled. "My grandmother's wedding ring. I've known for as long as I could remember that it would be the ring I would give to the woman I married."

She hung up the phone with tears fresh in her eyes, standing and coming to me so quickly that her embrace was almost a surprise. We christened her kitchen counter that night as well, Sara muttering softly into the stillness as I moved my mouth over her soft, beautiful stomach that she could always call her mother in the morning…

And somehow, by the following night, everything was planned. The following Saturday, we were going to get married. I had spent the day on the phone, calling in every favor I had ever accumulated and a good number of Brass and Catherine's favors in order to get Saturday and Sunday night's shifts covered for the team. My mother was flying in, hers had managed to get it off work and was working on getting ahold of her brother, though it was more or less a lost cause.

It would be a small ceremony—just a Justice of the Peace, Sara and I, and our families—our mothers, my team, her girls, and her brother if he could be found. Sara's boss had given her Thursday and Friday as well as the following Monday off. She offered her the week as Sara had a ridiculous amount of vacation time built up, but Sara refused—she wasn't having a complicated ceremony, so she insisted the time wasn't needed.

On Tuesday I took my suit to be dry cleaned and ordered last minute flowers—boutonnières for the men, corsages for our mothers, wrist corsages for the girls, and bouquet for Sara—the same flowers I'd brought her on our first date… this was, after all, a new beginning for us.

On Wednesday I booked us a honeymoon suite for the night after our wedding night—my mother would be staying with us until her flight out the next day. And that night, after work, Sara called child services and spoke a woman she knew quite well, I guessed, by the way they small talked before Sara got to the point… we wanted to meet with her the following day about starting the process of adopting the girls. Afterwards, Sara called each of her gi—our girls' homes… speaking to their foster parents about picking them up after school. Once she confirmed it, the phone was passed to the girl in question, and Sara asked—not told—the girl if it would be alright.

She was going to take the girls shopping for dresses to wear to the wedding, and then over supper, we were going to ask them if we could try to adopt them.

Friday morning, Sara was going shopping for a dress. Friday afternoon, my mother was arriving. We'd have supper with her that night, and the next morning my team was arriving. And that afternoon… I was marrying the woman of my dreams.


	26. Chapter 26

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Yay fluff! :) Let me know what you guys think.

Also, I dunno if anyone cares enough to do so, but if you want to, you should type in 'String Quartet Tribute to Linkin Park Leave Out All The Rest' into Youtube. It's, as the title implies, a string quartet playing the song... but the song always makes me think of the episode where Sara sends Grissom the video and how sad he is, and I feel like this is such a beautiful version that I had to share it with my fellow CSI-lovers. :)

Anyway, enjoy the chapter.

Oh, no wait, I have one more thing. I work at a daycare--the kids and I found this giant beetle in the sandbox today. And despite it giving me the creeps, I went and found a jar to put it in so they could all look at it. :) I was channeling my inner-Grissom, apparently. I asked one of the girls what we should name it, and she (18 months, roughly) said, "Hmm... Buggy Buggy Beeeeeee Bug!" ...Do you think Grissom would name one of his racing roaches that?

* * *

Thursday morning I did my best to get ahold of my brother, despite knowing my mother had been trying since I'd told her our news. Gil said he'd taken care of flowers, getting the marriage license and arranging an appointment with the Justice of the Peace, and a hotel room. He had everyone's flight schedules and he went grocery shopping that morning to make sure we'd have food and drinks for the party that would certainly follow the wedding… and I went through my closet and my jewelry box, thinking about my wedding day. I intended to buy a new dress, but I had shoes I could wear, and jewelry.

The girls probably didn't. …And if they agreed to let us try to adopt them, maybe we ought to do something special for them too.

Around mid-morning with met with Charla Thompson, a woman I knew quite well who worked in child services. We sat down and were as honest as we could be—we were getting married, we wanted to adopt the girls, and we wanted to move to Vegas. She talked us through the process, had us fill out forms and background checks … but by the time we left the office, I felt good about it. Twelve year olds didn't often get adopted… not the way the younger kids did. If all our paperwork went through, she didn't see why everything wouldn't work itself out. She was going to call us sometime next week to see about what was going on. More than likely they would be foster children with us first while we went through the process of adoption, and we wouldn't be able to move until then. She gave us a rough timeline, and on the ride back, Gil called the dreaded Ecklie himself to explain his situation… and that he might not be back for months, but that he would be coming back.

We had a late lunch and took Hank for a walk and then I kissed Gil goodbye and drove over to their school. It was lucky they all lived so close, although I suppose they were probably assigned mentors in groups of girls they already knew, so maybe it wasn't luck at all. I hadn't picked them up from school before, so I parked as close as I could to the front entrance and walked inside, hoping I'd spot them.

The bell rang as I was stepping through the doors and I stood to one side as within seconds it seemed there were children rushing all around me. Only minutes later, I saw Jill walk around a corner and a smile light up her face. She turned behind her and called, "She's here!" as if they all doubted whether I would actually come. They were hurrying down to me then in a rush, backpacks swinging on their backs and smiles on their faces. I grinned. "Okay, wait… If you guys need to stop at your lockers for homework or something, I can wait. Really."

Alexis was practically bouncing she was so excited. "We made sure we had everything before last class so we wouldn't keep you waiting! What are we doing?!"

I laughed. "Well… Let's head to my car, and then I have some news…"

They laughed and chatted about their day, trying to pry details from me as we all headed out the large doors and down the block a ways until they spotted my car and ran for it. Jill took the front seat—it had been her turn two weeks ago, when Gil had started riding with us wherever we went, and she clearly hadn't forgotten. As soon at the doors were closed, they were all silent, watching me, and I felt a blush creep over my cheeks at the amount of attention they were giving me.

I laughed offhandedly and turned my body so I could see all of them, grinning. "Well… What I wanted to tell you is that… this past Sunday… Gil proposed to me!" The screams that filled the car would surely have deafened me if I hadn't been prepared for them and leaned back a little as I delivered the last line. They were shouting and asking questions and hugging me and I couldn't help but laugh and laugh, trying to settle them down to listen. Finally, I spoke over them.

"Okay, okay, so… What we're doing today is going shopping, because you girls will need something to wear to the wedding… on Saturday."

The screams came again and we drove away from the school in the midst of a million questions and requests for details and squeals of excitement. …God, I loved these girls.

I took them to a strip mall full of dress shops so that we could easily have a look at most of our choices before making a final decision. They teased me as we moved from store to store about the 'shotgun' wedding and if I was pregnant and why I didn't want to have a big, fancy wedding in a year. I tried to explain that it just wasn't me… that I was more excited about the marriage than the wedding, and I think they got it… but they still thought I was crazy. And by the time we trekked back out to my car, having purchased a dress, shoes, jewelry, and the necessary undergarments for each of them, we were running late.

I pulled out my phone after we'd piled their bags into my trunk and called Gil, telling him we were on our way and I was sorry it had taken so long. He said there'd been a wait at the restaurant, and that he'd only just been seated. We passed him drink orders and I hung up, hurrying over and feeling the butterflies that had been present since we'd decided we were actually going to do this ratcheting up to more than a slight distraction—I could hardly think straight they were so all-consuming.

We hurried into the restaurant, the girls quietly exclaiming over how nice everything was—I had taken them to a few nice restaurants, but I was pretty sure I was the only one who had in years. I caught sight of Gil and steered the girls back into a round booth, sliding in and all the way around to sit beside Gil with the girls following me in. "Hi honey." I said, pecking his lips softly. The girls giggled and teased me with a chorus of exaggerated pet names and kiss noises.

Gil rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. He loved them too.

A waiter arrived with sodas and the girls cracked their menus while I slipped my hand under the table to squeeze his knee. I couldn't help but be a little nervous. And once we had ordered, the pressure was on to bring it up. Sure, we could have waited until food came but then there were choking hazards and people were busy and it was too easy to get caught up in waiting for the right moment and miss the opportunity altogether. Gil squeezed my leg this time, apparently of the same train of thought, and I nodded softly, swallowing and turning to the girls, who were still talking about their dresses and the wedding.

"Girls…" They all quieted, turning to me with curious expressions. I felt him squeeze my leg again, to give me reassurance. Jesus, they were just twelve year olds. Why the hell was I so nervous? "I, uh… Gil and I… wanted to take you out for dinner, tonight, because… ah… We… wanted to ask you something."

Kaitlin's head tilted to the side, Alexis raised both eyebrows, and Jill simply narrowed her eyes, giving the least away. My hand was shaking under the table and he linked his fingers into mine. They were not shaking. He wasn't nervous… or, at least, he was very certain. I squeezed his hand, feeling reassured by that fact. What was I worried about? I was asking them for permission to try to adopt them as a matter of principle, but did I really expect them to say no? …They might not want to move to Vegas…

"We, uh… we were thinking of… moving to Las Vegas… sometime in the next few months…" Kaitlin's head righted itself, Alexis' eyebrows lowered in a frown, while Jill's eyes opened wider in disbelief. "…And we… were wondering if the three of you… would want to move with us."

Their looks, this time, were all the same—wide eyes, open mouths. Kaitlin recovered first. "I… What? Are you saying you want to adopt us?"

Gil smiled. "We are. …If… if you would want us to."

"Shut. Up." Alexis all but shouted, prompting a frown from Gil and amused giggles from Jill and Kait. I smiled.

"…Seriously. It's… a big decision and… it would mean a lot of changes. What it sounds like is… you girls would move in with us here in town for a little while, while the adoption goes through. We might be able to rush it so you can start school in Vegas in the fall. So you three would be sharing the office for a little while. It'll be cramped with three twin beds, even without my stuff in there… and you'd have to share everything. …In Vegas, Gil's going to sell his townhouse and we're going to see what we can afford. If we could get a nice place with three bedrooms, that's what we'll do but… it seems like it's a lot more likely that we'll find a place with a loft or an upstairs apartment or some sort of large extra room that the three of you would share…"

Jill was the first to respond. She had tears in her eyes and her voice came softly. "Yes." It reminded me of my own response to Gil's proposal, and it was, kind of. We were offering them a life with us, just as Gil had offered me a life with him.

Kaitlin was next—she was more than eager to get away from the home she lived in. It was stable, but only just. "…How soon can we move?!" She was grinning, and it was infectious. I turned to Alexis. She smiled shyly and nodded.

Gil frowned. "Alexis, honey… You don't have to, if… if you're happy where you are."

She shook her head and wiped at her eyes furiously. "No… I… I want to…"

I reached over and took her hand, squeezing it. "…What is it, honey?"

She choked on a sob and sniffled pitifully. "I just… can't believe you… want me." She took her hand back to stave off the sobs that broke out in response to her words and the girls on either side of her hugged her. I passed her Kleenex from my purse.

"Alex, hon… Of course we want you. We love you."

This only made her cry harder, but after dinner, when I dropped them all off at home again, before she ran inside, she hugged me tightly and whispered "Thank you," before running inside. It filled me up with warmth. Everything was falling into place, and I wondered, not for the first time this week, how I had gotten so lucky. This wasn't going to be easy, certainly… but I couldn't remember ever being so happy or so excited for the future. Not even when I'd been anticipating going off to Harvard.

I teasingly told Gil that night, as he laid kisses down the side of my neck, that we'd have to practice being a lot quieter with three teenage girls in the house. "Practice makes perfect…" had been his only response.

So we practiced.


	27. Chapter 27

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews! Let me know what you think! CSI tonight! Yay! :)

* * *

Sara left early the next morning, going to meet her mother for their usual breakfast and a day of dress shopping—her mother needed one as well. She had said she planned to be home in time to come to the airport to pick up my mother with me, but I had a hunch that things would run over and she wouldn't make it. Sara didn't like to shop, per se, but the look I'd seen in her eyes every time she talked about finding a dress for the wedding… I could tell that this wasn't the same.

I liked that, though. I wanted her to be as excited as I was.

So after she left, I ate some cereal, took Hank for a walk, went and picked up my suit from the dry cleaners, and then went to buy her a pair of earrings with sapphires dangling just below the lobe… because her wedding ring would be old, her dress new, and I wasn't certain how to buy her something borrowed… but she needed something blue. And I wanted to give her something for our wedding.

On a whim, I looked at a few different rings with different colored stones, thinking that maybe we ought to buy the girls something for the wedding as well… but then what if we weren't able to adopt them? …But no, if I was willing to adopt them, they were already family in my mind. I might not be at the point where I would call them my daughters or except them to call me 'dad' but… they were mine. I called Sara and she answered, sounding breathless.

"Gil? Hi… I was just about to call you. I don't think we're going to be done in time for me to go with to the airport. I'm really sorry."

I smiled, having expected as much. "It's fine, honey… She'll understand. It isn't easy to pull all this together in a week."

She sighed a little. "Good. …Gil, what size is your ring finger?"

I raised my eyebrows. "…I have no idea."

She huffed. "I'll just guess then and if we have to have it resized later…"

"It'll be fine, honey. …Really. Please don't stress about this?"

"Yeah, I know… I'm sorry, Gil. You called for something and here I've just been going off."

I grinned. I could just imagine how she looked right now—creases in her forehead, the corners of her beautiful mouth turned down, cheeks just slightly tinted red in her exasperation. "I was thinking we should include the girls in the ceremony… get them each a ring as well."

"Ohhh! Gil that's such a good idea! …But…"

"But what?"

"I don't know when we'll go get such a thing… Your mom's flight is coming in soon and—"

"Hey, hey… Calm down, okay? I'll take care of it. I figured we'd do birthstones. …When are the girls' birthdays?"

She sighed again. "You're too wonderful, Gil. Okay, uh… Alexis is July, Kaitlin is…March, and Jill is February."

I committed the information to memory. "Okay. I'll take care of everything. You just worry about your dress, okay?"

"Thanks, honey."

I smiled. "You're welcome. I love you. I'll talk to you later?"

"Yeah." She inhaled deeply. "Gil?"

"Mmm?"

"I love you too."

I then proceeded to purchase said rings for our girls—Aquamarine for Kaitlin, Amethyst for Jill, and Ruby for Alexis. I didn't know the sizes and didn't have time to resize them anyway. By the time I made it to the airport her plane was landing and I rushed inside, hoping they hadn't begun to disembark. Logically, I know that my mother is functioning and capable… I know that she doesn't need my assistance to get around or get anything done… but it's instinct. After my father died, I tried to take care of her and be the man of the house and she allowed me to, to some extent, because of her deafness. Now, I just couldn't get it entirely out of my system.

Luckily, she was disembarking as I rushed up and she rushed into my arms without hesitation, squeezing me tightly and speaking softly into my ear, "Oh Gilbert… My baby is all grown up and getting married!"

I felt myself blush. I was over forty years old, and my mother still made me feel like an adolescent trying to prove myself to her. I grinned like a fool because she was proud of me and happy. I kissed her cheek and pulled back to sign. "Should we get your bags?"

"Just a carry-on." She signed back. "I'm not in town long. …Sara couldn't make it?"

"She's shopping for a dress with her mother this morning—I think they underestimated how long such a thing would take."

She chuckled appreciatively, squeezing my hand. "You look so happy, Gilbert. It makes me happy to see you like this."

I blushed again and her smile was all too knowing. I led her out and to my vehicle, carrying her bag and helping her in, causing her to sign rather emphatically, "I'm not helpless, Gil. I'm just old."

"You're not old." I said, turning my face towards her, because it was safer than removing both hands from the wheel.

She chuckled again, shaking her head, and we drove to the condo in a comfortable quiet. Sara had a futon in the office that she'd pulled out and made up into a bed, giving my mother her best sheets and comforters. I had told her it wasn't necessary but even as I spoke I hadn't expected to be able to deter her. I helped her get settled, showed her the condo and let her and Hank reconnect—they were great friends. And I was surprised, when she looked at pictures of Sara from around her home, that she didn't comment on her age. I had told her I was marrying a younger woman but I hadn't said how much younger.

She must not have minded though… she just smiled and hugged me and followed me into the kitchen where I made us soup and sandwiches. After we ate, she went to take a shower and freshen up before she met my 'bride-to-be,' the phrase making me blush again. What was it about my mother softly teasing me about Sara that made me feel like a fourteen year old boy in love?

Sara returned late that afternoon and entered the house rather peculiarly—She swung the front door open and called, "Gil?"

I frowned and stood up, moving towards her with a glance to the office where my mother was taking a short nap—she didn't like flying and never slept well before she did. "Sara?"

"No! Don't come over here!"

I stopped dead in my tracks, staring in confusion at the open, empty doorway. "Okay…"

Her head appeared around the corner, but her arms still seemed very much occupied. "The bag my dress is in ripped when I was carrying it up here… I don't want you to see the dress before tomorrow."

I smiled. "Okay… I'll go close my eyes on the couch. Sound good?"

She nodded, her face looking relieved, and I grinned, doing as I said I would and keeping them tightly closed—if she wanted me to be surprised, then I wanted it too.

I listened as she stumbled through the house, plastic bags rustling all the way, until the bedroom door closed. Then I opened my eyes and got up to close the door she'd been unable to. She reemerged a few minutes later, looking a little harassed. "I'm never shopping again."

I chuckled. "That bad?"

She huffed. "Worse. Still though, it'll be worth it to see the look on your face… My, uh… brother hasn't called at all, has he?"

I shook my head and she nodded, seeming like she expected as much. "Will you show me what you got the girls?"

I had left them out, placing her earrings in the bottom of the suitcase I was still living out of, hard as that was to believe. I steered her over to the kitchen counter where three little black boxes rested. "Have you eaten?"

She nodded, reaching for them. "My mom and I grabbed a bite in the mall. Oh… we found the nicest dress for her. It's…" She stopped, looking down at the ring. "Oh, Gil… It's beautiful. …Thank you, for doing this."

I kissed her. "I should just take the brownie points for that, but… I didn't really do it because I wanted to make you happy. …I wanted them to feel included. Part of… our family."

She kissed me, wrapping her arms around me, and I really felt like my words were true—we weren't just a couple, we were a family… and we were building a family. It everything I had ever wanted, my whole life long, even before I knew I wanted such a thing.


	28. Chapter 28

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Sorry if this feels rushed. I wanted to get it done in between classes. It might not be... I tried to slow myself down but, if I didn't, I'm sorry. :)

Thanks for the reviews, as always! And I have been informed that I need to give a disclaimer at the beginning of each fluffy chapter. ...They're all going to be fluffy, for a while... No, pretty much for the whole rest of it. :) So...

Disclaimer: "Warning. This chapter should only be read with coffee sweetened with Equal. Not even Splenda, because that still has some sugar, and I would avoid Sweet-n-Low because it's in that bright pink packet which might lead you to recall the 80s sensation, "Pretty in Pink," which, when coupled with GSR fluff, might cause irreversible lovestruck looks on the readers' faces. Also, do not directly look into a puppy's eyes during any moment of reading this. You have been warned." :)

Jelly, you make me smile. Also--I was doing lesson plans for my kids and looking at silly holidays etc. in April. The 22nd is National Jelly Bean Day. :) You have your own holiday... as long as the Earth Day people don't try to overshadow it with their crazy global-warming-love-the-earth-hippie-tree-hugging-ways. :) Silly Earth-Day-People, go eat some jellybeans.

* * *

I had time to shower and change before Gil's mother got up… the minute I heard the door to the office open I was on edge, not butterflies but large birds swooping through my stomach. This woman was the single most important person in Grissom's life. Well, except me… I hope.

I stood up after Gil as she stepped into the room, smiling brightly at the pair of us. Gil squeezed my hand. "Mom… this is Sara. Sara, my mother, Evelyn." I stepped forward, intent to shake her hand and welcome her and thank her for… what? I don't know… coming to the wedding… giving birth to the most amazing man in the world…? Before I could reach out a hand, however, she had pulled me into an embrace. Her voice was a little off because of her deafness, but I could hear her sincerity ringing through each softly spoken word.

"I am just so happy to meet you, Sara. I haven't seen my son so in love in years… but I think you already knew that." I pulled back in surprise and she grinned and winked at me, leaving me blushing. She knew. I don't know how she knew, because Gil had never told her… but she had figured us out.

I smiled, despite my surprise. "Thank you… I love him very much."

Her hands gently framed my cheeks, her palms not coming in contact but rather her fingertips just brushing the edges of my jaw. "I know you do. I can see it in your eyes. …I could not imagine a more beautiful woman for a daughter in law."

I felt tears in my eyes and the woman hugged me again before turning and smiling at her son, who wrapped an arm around me. I managed to compose myself, and then Gil suggested we go get dinner. We took his mother to a seafood place because it was her favorite, despite the protests Gil had raised earlier in the week when I'd suggested it. He didn't like to risk places that were primarily for seafood because of my allergy, but I wanted to treat his mother. I ordered tilapia with pasta and to my dismay Gil gave our poor teenaged waiter a rather stern look.

"Nothing in her meal can touch shellfish. It can't touch anything a shellfish has touched. She's allergic." Though his words were not all that harsh, the waiter nodded in nothing short of fright and actually stumbled away from the table.

"Gil." I chided him, feeling embarrassed that he'd made such a big deal out of it in front of his mother, but she just smiled at us, saying it was sweet how we took care of each other.

And though I'd been worried about conversing with a deaf person—I didn't know any sign language—talk flowed freely between us. She could read lips so well that had I not known she was deaf, I wouldn't have ever guessed. The woman herself was quite intriguing—she ran an art gallery, was active in the deaf community and often spoke to local politicians and their needs. She had raised Gil alone from the time he was nine and his father died, and volunteered in the church Gil had grown up attending, helping in the office once a week. She was… amazing.

And for some reason, she didn't seem to disapprove of me, at all. I thought, for sure, that she would think I was too young… that we were rushing into this… that I was pressuring Gil into adopting three children he didn't really want… that my past or Gil and I's past or …. I just thought that there would be something… some moment where I would say something and I would see the shift in her eyes—the second that she realized I didn't deserve her son.

It didn't happen.

She was beyond excited to hear about my job and my mentoring program and the girls—she kept saying how anxious she was to meet them—she asked about how much art was incorporated into the mentoring program and by the time dessert rolled around, we were planning to put a woman she knew in contact with Jodi to talk about the different opportunities the mentoring program had, in San Francisco, to expose the kids to different forms of the arts and to nurture talent and creativity.

We got each other, and I couldn't believe it. After everything that had fallen into perfect place this week, at the very least I expected to have a run in with my mother-in-law. …Was it normal to not hate your mother in law? Was it normal to love her?

We returned to the condo and Gil figured out how to set up closed captioning for the movie that was on TV. We watched it and talked and laughed and it was pushing eleven thirty before Gil nudged me, asking me about how early I needed to be up the next morning. The answer was… early. I invited his mother to come get her hair done with us that morning—I probably would have skipped the whole thing, but the girls had been excited to get to do all of that stuff—and then hugged her before heading off to bed. If she needed anything before she could sleep, Gil could take care of it… I was getting married tomorrow, and I needed my beauty sleep.

I woke early the next morning, slipping into the shower as quietly as I could, but apparently not quietly enough. Gil came in just after I'd finished shampooing, stretching his arms above his head and yawning loudly, reminding me forcibly of a big bear waking up from hibernation. He tried to slip into the shower with me, but I denied him—it was our wedding day, and though we might not have slept separate or done a lot of the traditions… I was fairly sure morning shower sex was pushing it. He put on his best pouty face, but I told him to go wake his mother while I got dressed and he stomped out, looking rather put out.

I made coffee and breakfast after I'd dressed and it was ready for Evelyn by the time she emerged, dressed as well. It was simple—scrambled eggs and toast—but I didn't really have time to make a gourmet breakfast to impress her, and she seemed to think this was more than sufficient. I called my mother and the girls while she sat down to eat, making sure they were up and would be ready to go soon.

The plan was… complicated. Gil's mother and I were going to pick up the girls , then the five of us would go to my mother's house, where we would switch into her SUV and drop off all the packages and bags and clothes that would be needed for the wedding., and finally we'd meet Gil at the airport at ten to pick up his team. He didn't have room in his rental car for more than four plus himself, but as Catherine was the only woman, we would take her to the hair dresser with us and the guys would go back to the condo.

Gil loaded up my trunk up while we ate, despite my protests, and then kissed me and sat down to his own breakfast while his mother and I left for the day, me running through a mental checklist of everything I had in the car and trying to think of anything I'd forgotten. We picked up Jill first who slid into the back seat, giving Evelyn a shy wave. I introduced the two, and Evelyn smiled at her, telling her how happy she was that her son was going to adopt such a beautiful girl. Jill blushed, and I smiled… his mother had the ability to make everyone she spoke to feel good about themselves.

Alexis was next. She too seemed shy, though she managed a "Hi," and then a "Are you Griss' mom?" before I had the chance to make introductions. Evelyn laughed, telling her that she was and repeating the compliment—how happy she was to meet one of the girls who had stolen her son's heart. Alexis blushed.

Kaitlin was last—in part because it was easiest, driving-wise, to pick them up in this order… but in part because she was always the last to be ready. She plopped into the car, smiling at Evelyn. "Hi. …Can I call you Grandma Griss?"

Evelyn was the one who smiled brightly this time, and I realized with some surprise that this was a woman with a forty-one year old son… She had probably waited a very, very long time to have someone call her 'grandma.' She blinked a little rapidly and nodded, smile still firmly in place. "That would make me very happy. …You're very sweet, Kaitlin." Kaitlin blushed. …I really, really loved this woman.

At my mother's house it was chaos—Gil's mother had all of her things organized and my mother showed her to the guest bedroom where she could lay her things out for later. I helped my girls into the office, telling them that they needed to lay out everything they would wear right now, so if we were missing something we would have time to go back for it. Miraculously, they had not forgotten anything, and I directed them to the living room to watch TV while I checked to make sure Evelyn had everything she needed and then carried my own things into my mother's room and set them down. I had triple checked, but I still took the time to pull everything out and mentally go over everything I needed, just to make sure.

Finally, we were loading into my mother's vehicle. I directed the girls to squeeze into the three seats in back and gave Evelyn the front seat next to my mother, who was driving. I sat in the middle, feeling nervousness creeping up on me. It was still very early in the day… there was still so much to do. Meeting Gil's team and answering what I was certain would be a thousand questions, getting hair done, dressing and making sure the girls had what they needed, getting to the courthouse on time with everything we needed, getting flowers from Gil, not forgetting his ring or my ring or the girls rings or the marriage license or…

If I could just keep everything straight for a few more hours, then I would be fine.


	29. Chapter 29

Disclaimer: I do not own.

A/N: So this is a long chapter... I just couldn't stop. :)

Hope you guys enjoy. As I said, it will be fluffy from now on, though I might throw in some... minor road bumps. :)

* * *

There was a crowd at the airport, waiting for my team—My mother, Sara's mother, Sara and I, three twelve year old girls, and Hank was in the car. At least they'd have no trouble finding us. I had explained as much as I could to Catherine, expecting her to pass my explanations on, because I didn't want to be answering questions while I was worried about getting ready for the wedding, remembering everything, and then attempting to enjoy the happiest day of my life.

Well, maybe second happiest. Meeting Sara, even under twisted circumstances, was the happiest.

I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her as soon as I saw her, earning grins from our mothers and assorted comments from the girls—"Aww!" "Get a room!" "PDA!" "Ew!" "Sara and Gri-iss sitting in a tree…."

It just made me smile… though it was with effort that I stopped kissing her for the sake of the people around us. I'd woken up feeling so full of happiness that today we were joining our lives together permanently, 'til death do us part, and despite feeling sleepy, I had wanted nothing more than to climb into her shower and love her senseless—my mother was deaf… it wasn't like we had anything to worry about. But she'd denied me out of some sort of lingering sense of tradition. I could see her on the day of our wedding—what a ridiculous superstition—but if we had sex then that bad luck would no longer be ridiculous.

I'd brooded for a good ten minutes after that rejection.

I satisfied myself with holding her hand while we waited for the flight to get in. I expected the girls to be hovering close, as they didn't know anyone but Sara and I, but instead they were crowded around my mother, already learning sign language—Hello and how to spell their names—and calling her 'Grandma Griss.' I beamed—I hadn't seen my mother look so happy in a long, long time. I hadn't realized how much she must have wanted grandchildren.

The plane landed and Sara nudged me. "You'd better go up closer so they can see you and don't walk off somewhere else."

So, with a nod, I kissed her hand and moved forward through the crowd to make sure my team would catch my eye. Nearly half the plane had disembarked before I saw them—Nick was first, in jeans and tennis shoes and a plain white t-shirt, a black cowboy hat on his head and a duffle bag over one shoulder. Greg was at his side, saying something that was making the Texan grin, his hair spiked up, in jeans and a black band t-shirt, also toting a duffle bag. I waved and they both smiled brighter, moving over to me. I glanced behind them—Catherine had just emerged, tossing her hair and straightening her clothing—black slacks and a green t-shirt making the strawberry tints in her hair brighter. She did not appear to have any luggage on her, but when Warrick emerged in a dark blue shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest and black jeans, a bag over his shoulder and another rolling behind him, it explained the anomaly. Bringing up the rear was brass in a white button down and black suit pants, his tie missing and his jacket over one arm, a small suitcase in his right hand.

I hadn't realized how much I'd missed all of them until this moment.

I had a moment of being lost in my thoughts, and then Nick and Greg had reached me and were unexpectedly hugging me and patting my back, offering congratulations, and though I had never hugged either man before, I appreciated the gesture. The affection felt…natural. Catherine's hug was tighter, her voice more emotional when she told me how happy she was for me, and Warrick's was looser—a manlier hug. Jim declined to give me one at all, throwing me a grin and patting my shoulder and looking me up and down.

"You look the same."

I smiled. "You expected me to look different?"

"Our Grissom wouldn't take a two week vacation and by the end of it, call us and say 'I'm getting married.'" Nick said, tilting his hat up to reveal more of his face.

"Speaking of," chimed in Greg, "Where is the lucky Mrs. Grissom to be?"

I quirked an eyebrow. What she going to take my last name? …We'd never discussed it. I cleared my throat. "Uh… She's back there, waiting with our mothers and the girls…"

"Oh yeah." Warrick said with a smirk. "Griss is a daddy now."

Catherine tilted her head. "You sure you're ready to raise preteen girls?"

I smiled, shaking my head. "Is anyone ever ready to raise a preteen girl, let alone three? …Come on, I'll introduce you to everyone."

I led them over and when they came into sight, it was obvious who they were—my mother looked very like me, the girls were loud and, if I was not mistaken, exclaiming over the young men behind me, and Sara and her mother resembled each other enough to look like a mother and daughter if you were looking for such a thing. Greg's voice came from behind me, obviously not meant for me to hear. "Whoa! Grissom's wife is hot!"

I smirked at that. Yes. Yes, she is.

I stopped between the two groups, feeling overwhelmingly happy that these two pieces of my life were suddenly coming together. I stepped back, standing between the two. "This is my team from the Vegas lab." I signed at the same time, in case my mother didn't have a good view of my mouth. "Nick Stokes, Greg Sanders, Catherine Willows, Warrick Brown, and Jim Brass." I smiled and turned slightly. "Guys… this is my family. This is Sara Sidle, her mother Laura, my mother, Evelyn, and at the end are Jill, Kaitlin, and Alexis." They giggled when I said their names, causing me to smirk. There was a brief pause as our large party stood taking in the members of the opposite group—and then my mother took a step forward, ending the question in my teams' eyes as to why I'd been using sign language.

"I've heard so much about all of you from Gil. He's very proud of his team."

And just like that, the tension of the moment was gone and everyone had moved forward, shaking hands and talking. My mom hugged everyone and all the guys hugged Sara and then in a moment we were headed back outside. We loaded all the luggage into my trunk with the exception of Catherine's bag, as she would need to change before the wedding, waved goodbye and piled into two separate cars to head off in different directions.

The minute the women were out of ear shot, the ribbing started.

"So Gil…" Jim began. "You didn't tell any of us you were robbing the cradle…"

I looked at him in surprise and the guys cramped together in the back seat all laughed.

They each added their own barbs on the way to the condo, prying information out of me—how old was she, when did I meet her, how did we run into each other, did she know my real age, was she using me for my money/butterfly collection/townhouse/irradiated fetal pig…. And many, many others. But when I pulled up to the condo and guided them inside… they seemed a little surprised, at least.

Sara was Nick and Warrick's age, and I was willing to bet that neither of them owned the place they were living right now. I was very proud of Sara's successes.

Though I was nervous for the wedding to begin, realistically I knew that getting dressed right now would not make the wedding come any sooner… and it would wrinkle my suit. So I gathered everything I would need to bring with me on the table by the door, except the flowers which were in the fridge, and set my suit out… and then took to pacing the living room while the guys helped themselves to sodas and the television. Well, at least someone was calm.

____

It was nerve-wracking, sitting next to Catherine.

She was Gil's best friend… and a disastrously beautiful woman. I felt… plain, next to her, and certainly like she would expect more from the woman Gil was changing his life for. Apparently she was under no such pressure, however, because she spoke freely to me while my mom drove us for our hair appointments. How I knew Gil, when we'd met, what I did for a living… simple questions… small talk. But it came easily, and by the time that we were climbing out of the vehicle I felt more comfortable, even if I now didn't believe I would be the most beautiful woman in the room when I got married.

Still—Gil had known her for years. If he wanted her instead of me, he'd certainly had time to make that known…

We didn't have to wait very long before they were calling us back a few at a time—I tried to send Gil's mother first, but she insisted that, as the bride, I deserved the most time to be spent on my hair. They sent the girls back next, and then Catherine, and then finally the older women. Catherine was chatting with Gil's mother now, saying that he had mentioned her many times. I leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes while my hair was pulled this way and that, listening to the conversations around me. Gil's mother was telling Catherine how much she'd heard about her little girl and how excited Gil was that she called him 'Uncle Gil,' and my mom was talking with the girls about Gil's team.

They had already picked out their favorites, which didn't surprise me in the least. Kaitlin liked Nick because he was a clean-cut, preppy kind of guy… Alexis liked Warrick because the man simply exuded cool… and the buttoned down shirt showing off his muscled chest screamed sex. Alexis liked bad boys… mostly, I think she liked pushing limits. That was something we'd have to keep an eye on, in the future… there were a lot of limits to push, in Vegas. Jill liked Greg, of course—nerdy and eccentric and totally sweet. I smiled, despite the fact that my twelve year old mentees—no… daughters… Wow. That feels strange to even think—are dividing up who 'gets' which of the men who are roughly my age. It's harmless, like dividing up who 'gets' which guy in a movie… it's all fantasy.

I was the first done, despite Evelyn's conviction that I would need the most time—my hairdresser had curled my hair in more defined ringlets as opposed to the chaotic mess that my hair usually was and pulled it back gently so that the curls were visible on top of my head as they moved back into a loose gathering at the back of my head… too large to be called a bun. There were a few curls hanging down around my face, and I was reminded vividly of looking at myself in Gil's bathroom mirror on my eighteenth birthday, checking my appearance one last time before taking my position on his bed and waiting for him to come home to me.

It was rather appropriate—I was giving myself to him then, and I was giving myself to him now.

Catherine's hair was up in a rather elaborate up-do with twists and curls, Grissom's mother's long gray hair had been wrapped up in a very simple, elegant style, and my own mother had opted simply to have her hair curled and left down—she had straight hair, and was as incompetent with a curling iron as I was. My brother and I had gotten our curls from my father. I ventured over to the girls.

Kaitlin's hair was up in a sleek, complicated weave over the top of her head, half up in the back and half down. Jill's hair was similar to mine—curled and pinned up and back. Simple. Alexis had cornrows from a side part half-way over her head, and then a mass of curls punned up in back. I grinned and hugged each of them in turn. "You look beautiful, girls."

They were the last to be finished and once they were and I'd paid for the appointment, despite the arguments I received from Evelyn, Catherine, and my mother, we were squished back into the car and heading back to my mother's home. Before the appointment, it had seemed like we had all the time in the world to get ready… and now, suddenly, it felt like I needed to rush.

Everyone went to change while I followed the girls into the office, helping them get undress without messing up their hair and zipping and tying when necessary. Kaitlin had a lovely yellow dress printed with white flowers and a wide skirt that fell to her knees. Alexis had a black dress with spaghetti straps that shimmered when she moved, the skirt falling straight from her hips to above her knees. Jill was in a light blue dress with spaghetti straps that criss-crossed over her back and a skirt that fell above her knees in front and below them in back. Once everyone was dressed, I piled them into the bathroom with me and we did make-up together, because they didn't wear it on a daily basis.

I showed them how to do foundation and disappeared while they all took a turn, slipping into nylons and a pair of shorts before returning to demonstrate the application of eye makeup in a way that drew attention to the eyes without making it look trashy—a tragic side effect of most of their makeovers—and once again disappeared, pulling on the dress I'd chosen for myself.

It was white, but I hadn't set out with that stipulation in mind… I was actually thinking blue, because I knew Gil would be wearing a light blue shirt and dark blue tie, both of which would make his eyes look nothing short of brilliant. But when I'd tried it on… it had been absolutely perfect. It was strapless with a small, simple line of scalloped lace along the top, a dark blue sash at my waist, and simple, flowing fabric down. I had felt like a little girl when I'd stepped out of the dressing room and my mother had told me to spin—the bottom of the dress flew up around me, and I was in love.

I zipped myself up halfway and returned to the girls, who gushed over the dress, and then proceeded to make Jill's makeup darker and Alexis' lighter, before handing them each a different shade of lipstick. In a line, we applied, smeared, and blotted on a Kleenex, and then I sent them to watch TV in the living room while I added some final touches to my makeup and went to put on shoes and jewelry.

I almost ran into Catherine in the hallway, and we both stopped, trying to pass each other and each going the same way several times, until we had to stop and laugh. I smiled, pointing. "I'll take this side."

"Great." She moved to the other side and we were passing each other when she caught my arm and turned me. "…You look beautiful, Sara. Congratulations."

I smiled. "Thank you." She nodded, and we went our separate ways… but I felt confident again. Catherine had looked beautiful in her dress—a deep, chocolate brown—but I just… wasn't worried anymore.

Once in my mother's bedroom again, I took a moment to put in earrings, put on a necklace, and strap on my heels… and then there was a knock on the door. I opened it, and Evelyn stood there, smiling. "Can I come in for a moment, Sara?" I blinked in surprise but allowed her to pass and closed the door behind her. "You look beautiful, Sara…"

"Thank you," I said, unable to respond further than that—I was nervous about what she was going to say.

She smiled. "I just… I was wondering if you had all of your… things. Your something old and new and borrowed and blue…"

I grinned, feeling relief wash over me. "Well… my dress is new and blue… the ring will be old… I… I guess I don't have anything borrowed but…" I shrugged. "That's alright…"

She smiled and handed me a box I hadn't realized she'd been holding. I blinked in surprise. "Evelyn… You didn't need to do this."

She grinned. "You don't even know what I've done yet…"

I smiled and opened the box—a white, lace garter was held within, only a little yellowed with age, but still beautiful… delicate. My mouth dropped open and she beamed at me. "It was the garter I wore at my wedding… I would be honored if you would wear it as your 'something borrowed'."

I swallowed, looking between her and it… and then hugged her tightly, pulling back to speak to her. "This… It's too much. Thank you."

She kissed my cheek. "No—the ring is for the woman Gil chose to marry. …The garter… I wouldn't have offered it, Sara, if I thought it would be too much. …It is exactly what you deserve, dear, for making my Gilbert so happy."

I wiped frantically at tears and hugged her again. She left and I slid the garter on, fretting in front of the mirror at my running makeup, when another knock came. I sniffled and wiped at my eyes again, moving to answer the door—it was my mother, this time. She slid inside, closing the door. "Oh my baby… You are just so beautiful." She hugged me then, wiping at her own eyes. "I can't believe you're all grown up…"

I laughed through tears, thinking I would now have to redo my makeup completely, and my mother pulled back again. "Tell me you don't have a 'something new' yet." I laughed again, wiping my cheeks.

"Other than my dress? No."

She smiled. "Well… something extra then." She pulled me into her closet, where she had a veil in a box. At my surprised look, she grinned. "Call me old fashioned…but a bride needs a veil. Humor your mother."

So while I had not intended to wear a veil… my mother helped me pin it in my hair. I smiled and hugged her and rushed to the bathroom to redo my makeup—we needed to leave if we were going to get there on time.


	30. Chapter 30

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: So, I know I said (in another story, so not all of you knew this) that I wouldn't be updating again tonight, but we missed the movie, so I'm home early. :)

Also, this chapter is short, but the last one was long... so I call it a wash.

Warning: Fluffy, fluffy fluff. :)

* * *

I paced outside the small, extra court room we were using—the justice of the peace had wanted us to come to his office, but the sheer number of people who had flown in to see our wedding, not to mention the sheer number of people Sara knew who worked in the courthouse, had convinced him to make it work. I was nervous—not cold feet, but just… this was the biggest moment of my life. I wanted everything to be perfect. I glanced at my watch.

Seven minutes.

"Griss!" I turned frantically at Kaitlin's voice—all three girls were coming over to me. "Sara sent us to get the flowers for the girls… She doesn't want you to see her yet."

I had them all already in a bag an passed them off. "You girls… you all look beautiful."

They giggled and glanced between themselves, but then as a group hugged me quickly. I went my ears turning red and smiled. "Listen… Can you guys give this to Sara too? Tell her to open it right away…" I passed them the jewelry box with her earrings and they glanced at it, giggled more, and hurried out, carrying the flowers and the earrings with them. I sighed—at least Sara was here. I was so excited I didn't think I could handle waiting much longer.

Four minutes.

I turned and headed back into the tiny courtroom where Jim, Nick, Warrick, and Greg were seated, chatting in a relaxed fashion—Warrick in a suit with no tie, his shirt open as usual, Brass in a full suit and tie, Nick in a button down and tie—no jacket, and Greg in jeans, sneakers, and a suit jacket over a t-shirt. I smiled affectionately at them, glancing at my watch.

One minute…

The magistrate moved in then, shaking my hand and then each of the guys' hands as I introduced them. I glanced at my watch again, after giving the man the marriage license we'd acquired earlier in the week…

It was time.

______

Gil had given me earrings. I almost burst into tears again when I opened the little box to find a slip of paper with Gil's beautiful handwriting on it—"Something blue." It was only my mother calming me down and reminding me that I had no way to fix my make up at this point that allowed me to calm myself.

It had been less than a block from here that Gil had walked back into my life again… and we were all wearing the flowers he'd brought me that night—white daffodils and pink azaleas. New Beginnings, first loves, temperance… I smiled, changing out my earrings and passing the pair I'd removed to my mother, who tucked them into her purse.

I passed out flowers—corsages for our mothers and Catherine, wrist corsages for the girls, and a bouquet for me. I sent Jill in to make sure Gil was in the courtroom if he wasn't yet, and when she'd returned and told me everything was clear, we hurried inside. Evelyn hugged me, as well as the girls, before heading inside. Catherine squeezed my shoulder, and then I was left with my mother. I hugged her tightly and then pulled back. "You'd better go in…"

She smiled. "…I can walk you in, sweetie. I know you wanted your brother to do it, but… I mean, we're modern women, aren't we?"

I smiled and shook my head. "Yeah, we are. …I can walk myself in, Mom, really… modern and independent women don't need to be given away."

She tilted her head but nodded and hurried inside. I watched the heavy doors close and then stepped in front of them, taking a deep breath in to prepare myself, and then reaching for the door, ready to walk into a beautiful future with the man of my dreams.

"Sara!"

I nearly dropped my bouquet I spun around so fast, certain that I was hallucinating. My brother, James, was rushing up the stairs from the entrance in an old black suit, white collar unbuttoned, tie stuffed haphazardly in his breast pocket, mop of curls atop his head wild. I blinked. "Jimmy?"

He wrapped his arms around me in a bear hug so tight I couldn't breathe for a moment. When he released me, I looked up at him in surprise. "…Are you really here?"

He grinned. "I am. …I'm so sorry I didn't answer any of your calls, I—"

One of the courtroom door swung open and Alexis peered around it. "…They're wondering where you are, Sar'."

I nodded, still in disbelief. "Tell them I'll just be one second. …Tell them I'm sorry."

She nodded and turned back to the room—before the door closed completely I heard her say, "She says she's sorry, she'll just be a second… She's talking to _some guy_…"

I rolled my eyes. Good job, Alex, give Gil a heart attack before I could marry him. I turned back to my brother and he grinned—he looked older… there were more lines in his face… but somehow he looked better. He looked less tired, and he was clean-shaven, and his eyes… looked clear. "Are you clean?!" I asked in surprise, and he smiled brighter.

"That's what I was trying to tell you—I entered myself in a rehab program. They take the people who can't pay… let them pay it off by working there, cleaning and stuff, when they get to a certain level, or pay it back after they get out… I didn't have phone privileges when I was a level one. I just got to check my messages this morning, and then I had to convince them to give me an emergency day pass, and then I had to run home because…." He paused, to build the tension, like he was awaiting a drum roll. "…I had to get this!"

He pulled a pearl necklace from the pocket of his jacket. My eyes widened. "Where did you get that?! Is that grandma's?"

He grinned. "Well, after you went into foster care and Mom…" He trailed off. Neither of us liked to talk about when she'd been the in institution. He shook his head. "I couldn't pay to store everything and the bank was taking the house, so… I went through everything and took the most important stuff. I knew this was the only thing Mom had of grandma, and then when I heard you were getting married…. I figured you'd need something old."

Once again, I had to fight back the tears. What was it with getting married that inspired the water works?

I blinked. _Getting married_. "I have to get married!" I said in alarm, realizing I'd kept them waiting for how long now… He laughed.

"Let's get you married, then. Here, switch…" I quickly took off the necklace I'd had on, tucking it into his pocket, and fastening the pearls around my neck. He held up his tie. "…There's no way I can do this myself."

I grinned, pulling it out and tucking it into a larger pocket. "We don't have time anyway. You look great."

"…So do you, little sis'." He offered me an arm and I placed mine in it, beaming. "…Should we go?"

I nodded, and he pulled the door open wide. Together, we stepped inside.


	31. Chapter 31

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Enjoy! :) Hopefully, if my muse is kind, there will be more antics to come today. :) Poor Greggo...

* * *

"…She's talking to _some guy_…"

Alexis slid back into her seat beside the girls and I raised an eyebrow. …Not that I was going to freak out—she could talk to whomever she wanted to. It was just… I was already in a state of nervous anticipation. More waiting wasn't good for me, and the fact that the conversation with said 'guy' was keeping her from coming inside to marry me…

Let's just say it put me more on edge than I was a second before. But I was fine. Really.

Laura caught my eye, silently starting to rise as if to see what was keeping her, but I shook my head slowly, turning instead to our justice of the peace. "I… I'm sure she'll be right in."

He offered me a smile and nodded, and we all sat in silence for several long moments. I could hear, through the stillness, the soft murmur of Sara's voice as well as a deeper voice… laughter and soft exclamations… and I closed my eyes, staving off the "old Grissom" who would have gone mad with jealousy and insecurity. The only reason I deserved to be standing here today… the only reason I had any right to expect her to come through those doors and agree to spend her life with me… was that I wasn't that person anymore.

So I closed my eyes, and I thought about other things—about whether I thought I'd purchased enough alcohol for the after party in Sara's apartment and about if my team would like the restaurant we chose to eat at after this and about how beautiful our girls looked, dressed up, made up, with their hair done and flowers on their wrists. …Sara was going to be such a wonderful mother, and I was going to try my damnedest to be as good a father.

I heard the heavy door creak as it started to open and my eyes flickered along with it, taking in the rows of people standing to turn and look as the door opened fully and two people stepped through the doors at the end, both beaming. I vaguely registered soft murmurs of surprise from everyone except Sara's mother—who gasped softly. I couldn't address any of that right now, however, because I had just taken in the sight of my Sara looking as beautiful as I'd ever seen her, and looking at me with eyes sparkling with love.

The woman with the beautiful curls under her veil and the flowing dress that made her look almost ethereal was smiling at me. _Me_.

Nothing else mattered much, in that moment.

As they moved forward, without music, I was able to tear my eyes to the man in question, and everything snapped into place. Sara had wanted her brother to give her away and had been unable to get ahold of him, which had made her sad but not altogether surprised her. Apparently he showed up every few months to get a shower and a meal and would usually be gone again by the next morning. She had offered to pay for drug rehab for him several times but he refused to accept help from his little sister.

I eyed him more closely. He didn't look high… and he didn't look like he was going through withdrawals. I beamed—whatever he'd been doing these past weeks that had made him unable to answer his phone was instantly forgiven in my mind. He had come through, in the end, and it looked like he was clean…

And then they were next to me, tears already running down Sara's face and I felt myself blinking rapidly to save myself some dignity. The man slipped arm from Sara's and offered me his hand. "James Sidle."

I grinned, taking his hand and shaking it, noticing with a sort of dim half-awareness, that the girls all seemed to gasp at his introduction. Apparently they knew her brother by name, if not by sight. "Gil Grissom. …Thanks for being here."

His grin was playful… catching… a laughing, disarming thing that hitched further up on one side than the other and made him look very childish, despite the lines around his mouth. He was much older than Sara, though he was younger than I and looked roughly my age. James Sidle—Jimmy, as Sara always called him—had not had an easy life. "No where else in the world, man." He patted my shoulder and then turned and hugged Sara tightly, whispering, "You're so beautiful, Sar'…" before pulling back and lifting her veil over her head in a gesture that made my heart leap. She was beautiful, and she about to be my wife.

The ceremony after that was simple—The Justice of the Peace talked about the commitment and sanctity of marriage and we exchanged rings and vows, Sara continually pulling her hand from mine so she could wipe at her cheeks and me blinking rapidly more than once to prevent such a display on my part. We signed the marriage license and our mothers came up to sign as witnesses, and then, finally, finally, finally… he told me that I could kiss my bride.

I didn't think about the twelve year olds watching, or our mothers, our my team, or her brother… I wrapped my arms around her waist, caught her lips in mine, and bent her over backwards.

She was blushing and laughing when I let her up and our small audience was cheering, Nick whistling and Greg and Warrick whooping. The justice of the peace cleared his throat.

"And now, Gil and Sara wanted to take a moment to include their entire family in this ceremony…"

The noise died down as everyone looked between themselves, confused. Sara grinned. "Alexis, Jill, Kaitlin… could you girls come up here please?"

Kaitlin had a surprised kind of grin on her face, Alexis had wide eyes, and Jill was blushing and looking down. In a row, the three girls stood and came up, standing uncertainly up front with us. I slipped my hand into my pockets and pulled out the three ring boxes, opening each one in turn and passing it to the corresponding girl. I smiled. "…Sara and I are getting… Well, got married…" I tossed her an excited grin accompanied by a little bounce on the balls of my feet and she chuckled. "…because we wanted to make a commitment to one another, forever. …We wanted all of you to know that that commitment extends to each of you as well. …Whether or not the adoption goes through, we're family now… forever."

The girls looked close to tears. There was a brief silence and then Catherine started clapping, spurring everyone on, and then the girls were hugging us, back and forth, over and over and our Justice of the Peace was laughing softly behind us, speaking above the noise of everyone to say, "I am pleased to present to you… The Grissom family."

"Sidle/Grissom!" Sara corrected, causing her mother, brother, and our girls to laugh, though my team looked a little confused. I grinned and leaned over and kissed her temple. As long as it made her happy, she could have any name in the world she wanted.

With Sara's brother present, we had more people than we could fit into our two vehicles, but he insisted that he could sit on the floor of his mother's SUV, beside the sliding door. He promised he'd duck if we passed any cops, causing the girls to giggle incessantly. Catherine dragged Warrick into the larger vehicle with her, insisting that the bride needed to ride with her husband, so Jim slid into the back seat with Nick and Greg and Sara and I held hands across the console.

I wanted to ask about her brother, but I didn't know how much she wanted shared with my team, so I waited and instead let the guys tease her, asking her how it felt to be married to an old man and telling her what a beautiful bride she'd been and Greg insisting that he had lots of things in jars if she'd been so eager to marry a man with a fetal pig. Sara had frowned at that, apparently not understanding, but quickly recovered.

"I'm using him for his spider, guys… So unless you've got a fuzzy little tarantula named 'Stevie'…"

They weren't sure if she was joking or not, so they didn't say anything.

Between Nick, Greg, Warrick, and James, the girls were thoroughly amused at one end of the table in the restaurant. Nick was telling them cowboy stories, embellishing details and turning them into fairytales in which he was always the hero rescuing some fair maiden who could rope better than any man he'd ever seen. Warrick and Greg were taking it in turns to tell them about the city they were moving into—Warrick talking about what there was to do, off the strip, and Greg extolling the virtues of the rat-pack and the mob and Vegas' "good old days." James himself took up the task of interrupting to tease about boyfriends and make-up and making Sara and I work extra hard at this parenting thing.

How kind of him.

Sara sat beside the girls, occasionally turning and tossing out a warning or a joke, but mostly watching her brother with a strange sort of smile on her face—it was the same one her mother had, through most of the meal, watching him. I realized with some surprise that though Sara had been honest when she told me that she didn't expect him to answer or show, this had meant more to her than she'd let on. She would have always regret getting married without her brother present, even if she'd know n that there would have been no way to control it.

I sent a silent prayer up to whatever God was up there, thanking him for the small miracle of his attendance and the large miracle of Sara and her love for me. I honestly had everything, in this moment, that I had ever wanted.

Despite an entire table protesting, I paid for dinner, and once again we were all piling into our two vehicles, headed back to Sara's condo. Everyone piled in, laughing and joking and sprawling over the limited furniture while Sara pulled out fruit and veggie trays and started taking drink orders while I dragged her dining room chairs into the living room for more seating. Greg walked up first, requesting four mojitos and gesturing that he was bringing them for Nick, Warrick, and Catherine. Sara raised an eyebrow at him and shouted over his shoulder, "Nick… What are you drinking?"

He tossed her a grin. "Rum and Coke. Thanks, Sar'." I grinned at that… I could tell already that she was going to get along with the guys. Her glance returned to Greg, who had the decency to look sheepish.

"…I figured they had a right to celebrate too…"

She crossed her arms. "…And what, exactly, do you think would happen if I returned my twelve year old mentees, who probably shouldn't be around this much liquor _anyway_, to their foster homes with alcohol on their breath…?"

"Twelve?!" Greg exclaimed, turning to glare at the girls. Jill frowned and looked away, looking as if she had thoroughly disapproved of the whole thing from the beginning. Alexis and Kaitlin had the decency to blush and offer Greg smiles as sheepish as his had been. He turned back to Sara. "…They swore they were fifteen!"

She handed him four cokes. "Congrats. You've just earned the position of DD for these girls to get home tonight." His jaw dropped and her grin widened. She looked over his shoulder again. "Nick… your drink's up. Catherine, what can I get for you?"


	32. Chapter 32

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: :) I hurried. I know most of you haven't even read the last one yet, but... I got excited. I find this chapter rather funny.

Jelly... I'm starting to think you don't like Nick very much. :) You think he's creepy, going to get drunk and hit on a twelve year old, you don't think he has a brain... Poor Nicky. :P

* * *

Greg pouted for most of the rest of the night, despite the girls attempts to get him to forgive them for their deception in an effort to get him to help them drink. The rest of the team, however, found it rather funny. Catherine kept saying, every time Greg looked down into his soda pop sullenly, "I _told_ you they were twelve, Greg!"

Everyone would laugh again, probably in great part due to the alcohol, and Greg would brood more. "I don't remember you ever saying that! …They look fifteen!"

When Gil focused his glare on Greg, however, he stopped defending himself. It was clear that Gil would not have approved of his actions if the girls were twenty. I smiled—he was already a big, protective papa bear, even if he didn't know it yet.

And, apparently I had left Evelyn and my mother too much time to talk—Evelyn had brought photo albums of Gil growing up and my mother, thinking this was a great idea, had dug around to find some of her own as well. They were less complete than Gil's collection because of the interrupted nature of our lives when I was a child, but once she was released from prison, she made an effort to call every obscure relative she knew who might have pictures, and Jimmy had actually had a whole album that he gave her at one time or another.

It was much, much worse for Gil. His mother took out her literal stacks of photo albums when everyone—herself, Jimmy, and the girls excluded—had had enough to drink that everything was funnier than it ought to be, and we all grouped around my little coffee table to see her page through them.

The first picture was of Gil as a baby, held by a younger Evelyn, his eyes already bright and wide, even in the black and white picture. As she paged through the album, I was surprised at the sheer number from that early in his life—they must have owned their own camera, which was quite rare in the time period, although I knew that Gil's family had never hurt for money.

Gil looked like a tomato when the two year old picture of him after a bath showed a cheesy grin over a bare shoulder, blonde curls tight and dark with water, cheeks chubby as anything, his bare bottom out and open to the world. …He was such a cute baby.

As he got older, the pictures became more numerous—several pictures from one event rather than only one to represent a moment in time—and started to have color. I saw Gil as five year old on the beach and as an eight year old with huge glasses, grinning over a magnifying glass with a man who looked very like him, and also had large glasses. I saw a ten year old Gil who looked much more serious, who had a hand extended and a butterfly perched on his index finger and a thirteen year old Gil who had patchy hair on his chin and a few pimples on his forehead, bent over what appeared to be a dead cat in a storage shed, looking every bit the amateur surgeon preparing for his first incision.

By fifteen he was clearly shaving, his glasses were smaller, and he wasn't the tall, skinny kid anymore. His eyes stayed serious, but he had more color—darker hair and skin, and a little more definition to his young muscles. He was smiling and holding up some award he'd won… at sixteen he had his arm wrapped around his mother, whom he was several inches taller than, dressed in a suit and tie—a wedding, his mother informed us, when Warrick commented on how dressed up he looked.

"Not prom?" Nick pressed, and Gil laughed.

"As you can see, I was pretty cool back then, so I couldn't decide on a date…"

"…You didn't go to prom?!" Kaitlin asked, her voice clearly scandalized… and after a long silence, everyone burst out laughing at her indignation.

An eighteen year old Gil proudly held up a diploma, wearing the same suit under an open, blue graduation robe, his mother looking up at him with nothing but pure pride in her eyes.

There were others—Gil in front of UCLA, Gil lying on an old couch with bad 70's curtains behind him, Gil with a group of people in what looked like the rainforest, Gil wrapped up like he was going to the North Pole, snow drifts behind him… Gil looking at bugs and holding up more awards and more diplomas and lots and lots of pictures of him with his mother.

…My favorite was still of his bare bottom. I'd have to ask Evelyn if she had more than one.

I tried to leave the room when my mother pulled out mine, but several people pushed me back down with a laugh and I covered my face in my hands instead, not certain which pictures she had but sincerely hoping I had dodged the bath-pictures bullet.

I hadn't—there was a picture of a nine year old James sitting in the bathtub holding what looked like a six month old me against his chest. …At the very least, the picture was taken from the waist up, and I had been such a chubby baby that other than my face, the only thing that was really visible was the rolls on my arms and legs. Gil squeezed my hand and pressed his lips to my ear. "…You had the same beautiful eyes, even then." I felt shivers skate down my arms and looked decidedly away from him. We were around too many people to be feeling that way right now.

The other pictures were sparing, and not nearly so embarrassing—a few birthday pictures, a few of Jimmy and I in the park… Jimmy's high school graduation. My mother apologized that she didn't have more than that, and to my surprise, nobody questioned why that might be, though I had expected as much. My mother wasn't in any of the pictures, because she was often hiding bruises, and my father was not because he often thought the whole picture-taking family-time thing was stupid anyway. …I had been sad, when he died… and for a while, I hated him. Now… I was just glad that I didn't have to see him in family pictures. He wasn't family, to me, anymore.

The rest of the party—which went from late afternoon into the night—was a blur of activity. Only a few moments stood out in sharp clarity. Gil had made several large pans of some baked cheese and pasta dish that I could not remember the name of, for the life of me, but which tasted amazing, and around five thirty he pulled them out of the oven and everyone dished up, eating on their laps while talking.

At some point in the night, a very, very drunk Nick hit on my mother, telling her he thought she looked like Audrey Hepburn, which caused her to laugh for so hard and long that I truly think she hurt his feelings. He joined Greg in the pouting, after that.

The girls performed their Spice Girl dance after dinner, thankfully not even asking Gil or I to perform it with them, though they did feel the need to mention that I had done so on more than one occasion and that Gil looked great in Strawberry Explosion Lip Gloss. His team looked at him strangely, after that, until they heard the girls trying to goad Warrick into being their 'Scary Spice' in Gil's place. …He had had enough that he honestly looked like he was considering it, until Catherine came and sat by him.

I knew she was married, but I wondered if there wasn't some chemistry between the two, despite that.

Nearing the end of the night, we were piling everyone into cabs—or trying to, at least. The girls were seated on the couch with Greg in the chair, waiting to be taken home, and Gil's mother was already cleaning up the kitchen despite my protests that I could take care of it. My brother had taken a cab back to his rehab around six thirty, because he was due back at seven, but not before giving me and our mother his number and telling us to call him there anytime… that he got kind of lonely there. I hugged him tightly, before he went, telling him how proud I was of him, and he laughed and shook his head and said that no, he was the one proud of me.

Gil managed to get Nick, Warrick, and Catherine in a cab headed back to their hotel… but we weren't sure where my mother and Jim had gotten to. That is, until I went to change out of my dress so I could go with Greg and the girls and tell him how to get to each of their homes. My door was locked… which was strange… and the sounds coming from within were… alarming.

I was sober in a minute and running back out to the living room with wide eyes, trying to be calm so the girls didn't pick up on my concern. Greg did, but at his curious look I just shook my head, walking out onto the balcony where Hank had retreated when we got too loud, to see if Gil was on his way back up yet.

I pulled him into the kitchen, when he came back up, and as neither of us really wanted to go knock on the door… we figured we'd let them come out in their own time. I went down with Greg and the girls and by the time we got back to the condo, Jim was waiting outside for Greg with his own cab. I hugged the young man goodbye, despite his earlier attempts to corrupt my daughters, and would have hugged Jim—he really was a sweet man—but the thought of him and my mother… I just couldn't do it.

I hurried upstairs, relieved to find that Gil was alone—his mother had gone to bed and my mother had caught her own cab, after they'd emerged from the bedroom, shame-faced, having not realized that the party had died down and ended without them. I just looked at him, not certain if I wanted to laugh or cry, but he decided for me—he burst out laughing, scooped me up in his arms, and carried me over the threshold of our bedroom…

…Where we proceeded to strip the bed, flip the mattress, and remake it with clean sheets.

Eww.


	33. Chapter 33

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: So... it's long. I kinda went overboard. But... in a story this fluffy, the sex can't just be regular, run-of-the-mill sex, now can it?

So, for those of you requesting smut, your wish is granted. Jelly... Does this count as a standing ovation type performance by Grissom? :) I thought about throwing in the phrase 'pleasantly fuckable' again, but I thought it was overkill. Hehe. If not, just imagine it in there yourselves...

Also, ...do you think there's elder abuse in this chapter? I don't, but I felt kind of strange about the situation with his mom... :)

Reviews? Because I gave you a loooong smutty chapter. Just sayin'.

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Now believe me—I had a beautiful wedding night planned for Sara and I. I figured that after the party she'd want to clean up, hang her stuff up… take the girls home. And I would have time to do candles and rose petals and champagne… kind of an homage to our first time… because this would be our first time as husband and wife. But when, during the time your wife is gone, your friend and mother-in-law are… finishing… rather loudly, and you're the only one who can hear it because your deaf mother is oblivious… It throws off everything.

Seriously, do you have any idea what it's like to sit in the kitchen listening to your mother talk about how beautiful your wedding was, completely unaware of the background noises of thumping and you mother-in-law saying "harder" and "oh, yes!"? It's horrifying.

I was torn between thinking that perhaps we should just sleep, and I would save all the first-time romance for the next night, when we had a honeymoon suite, and thinking that I somehow had to compete with the people who had vacated this room and this bed mere less than an hour ago. …I shuddered at the thought. Having a war with your neighbors was one thing—having it with the bed-is-still-warm kind of memories of your mother-in-law and friend… is quite another.

God. I never, ever, ever in my life wanted to know what Jim Brass sounded like when he came. Really. I would have died happy, not knowing that.

Ugh.

So I compromised. I took the clean comforter we'd just put on the bed and dragged it out into the living room, ignoring Sara's raised eyebrow.

"Gil? …What are you doing?"

I spread it on the floor of the living room, caught Hank by the collar, and directed him back into our bedroom, past Sara who was standing in the hall with her arms crossed over her chest, tapping her foot. "We're not… alone… in there." Sure, I had laughed earlier, but… it was one of those 'What else can you do?' moments… and the more I thought about it, the less I thought we could just ignore what we both knew had happened.

Her eyes were wide and she lowered her voice, despite knowing that my mother was deaf and would not wake up to our talking. "Gil! …I'm not… spending our wedding night… out on the floor!"

I frowned. "…Because it's the floor or because my mother could come out at any time…?"

She blinked in surprise. "I think you mother is reason enough…"

I picked up a dining room chair, carried it back into the hallway, opened my mother's door and peered inside—she was sound asleep. I turned the lock on the door, pulled it closed, and added the chair for good measure, tilting it up under the door to hold it closed. Her eyes were alarmed. "Gil! You can't lock your mother in her room!"

I shrugged. "Chances are, she won't wake up anyway. This is just… insurance. Buys us time to put our clothes back on, if she does wake up…"

She still looked indignant, like she couldn't believe what I was doing… but her eyes were softening. "What if she does? How do we explain why we had a chair there?"

"Your door sometimes sticks… We're so sorry we didn't remember to tell her that."

She smirked. "Gil…"

I kissed her, holding her face in my hands and slowly. Slowly deepening it while my fingertips trailed from her cheekbones to her jaw, over her neck and shoulders, down her arms, and around her waist, holding her tightly to me. "…It's our wedding night, Sara. Desperate times…" I whispered against her lips. I took her fluttering eyelashes and lazy smile for consent.

"…I'm gonna get set up out here. You go hang up your dress and change for bed, okay…?"

She nodded, kissed me deeply again, making me ache with want, and then turned and hurried off to the bedroom. I grinned at her retreating form and then quickly set to work, pulling out the candles and lighting them and spreading the silk rose petals I had purchased earlier in the week—red and white—over the comforter before pulling out the bottle of champagne and two glasses. Once everything was set up nicely, I moved back into the bedroom. Sara was in the bathroom, so I grabbed our pillows and quickly stripped out of my suit, hanging it up and trekking back out to the living room with the pillows.

I was just thinking that maybe Sara would be hungry—it had been a few hours since we'd eaten and she'd been so busy playing hostess and bartender that she hadn't really had a chance to eat much—when she cleared her throat softly behind me. I spun around—She was standing in the entrance to the hallway, arms stretched out so a hand rested on the wall on either side of her, her eyes bright and her lips twitching up into a mischievous smile. She had left her hair up but her jewelry was gone except for the thin band of gold that had once been my grandmother's. I hadn't expected it to fit her—it was much too small for my mother's hands—but it was like it had been made for her.

Her feet and calves were bare and innocent, as were her long, slender arms. The white nightgown she was wearing was thin but not sheer and though the shoulder straps and bodice were fitted, the bottom flowed freely out over her hips and down over her thighs.

I felt my breath hitch in my throat, looking at her. …God, but she was just so beautiful. …I mean, honestly, every inch of Sara Sidle, inside and out, was breathtaking. If I could have sat down and planned out the perfect woman for me—my ideal counterpart, mind, body, and soul—I still would not have been able to come up with someone as wonderful as Sara. She was beyond imagining.

She grinned at my slack-jawed expression and slowly turned on the spot, revealing a deep V down the back of the nightgown, stopping in the small of her back. If I had been walking, when she did that, I would have fallen flat on my face. As it was I simply drew in air sharply, feeling my heart pounding in my chest and in my ears almost absently. I mean it when I say that she was and is a work of art—the absolute picture of timeless beauty.

And when she stepped forward, into my fumbling, uncertain arms, I knew that I would never, ever deserve her… but if she would stay with me, I would do exactly as I promised when I asked her to be my wife—I would spend the rest of my days doing everything in my power to try and make her as happy as she made me. I wasn't aware of deciding to do so, but my hands were sliding up from her waist, fingertips sliding along the seam of that deep V, eliciting shivers and delighting in the silky smooth feel of her skin. I met her eyes, desperately needing to get lost in their deep, dark, chocolatey depths, and the words were out of my mouth without thought. "…I love you… God, I love you so much. …More than anything, Sara."

She kissed me, softly, deeply, walking me backwards until my bare feet found the comforter I had laid out for us, and our lips separated. Together, unable to justify losing contact for even a moment, we slid down onto the makeshift bed I had laid out for us and I brushed a curl behind her ear. "…You're so beautiful. …And you… that dress… today…I… unbelievable."

She laughed at my stuttering and leaned in closer. "You're beautiful too, Gil. …I love you more than anything too. …My whole heart is yours."

And I was absolutely lost to her. I bent her slowly back, devouring her mouth with mine, until she was pressed into the soft white of the comforter and the brilliant red of the petals. I ran my hands everywhere—over her hair and her face and her long neck… down her arms, intertwining with her fingers, brushing across her abdomen and cupping her breasts in my hands, my thumbs roaming over her nipples and delighting in how quickly they tightened in response.

My mouth found her neck and my eyes nearly rolled back in my head at the guttural moan she released when it did. My hands traced the hourglass of her figure and gripped the curve of her hips… skated down the smooth expanse of her legs and hooked under her knees, bringing myself closer to her… I would spend the absolute rest of my life touching her like this, if I could.

The whimper in the back of her throat as my teeth scraped against her collar bone was nearly my undoing, and then my hands were tugging down the straps of her gown without my telling them to do so, my tongue slipping down over her delicate skin, needing beyond reason to taste her. I sucked one nipple into my mouth and the way she arched against me, her whole back lifting from the ground beneath her, made me feel like a god. I switched, pinching the wet nub instead, and her nails dug into my shoulder blades, surprising, wanting sort of gasps slipping through her lips.

"…Gil. God, I want you… Please…"

It would be so very, very easy to give in… to give her exactly what she wanted and take exactly what I wanted and let this moment culminate in a respectable, if not explosive, shared climax in no time at all. …But tonight that wasn't enough. We weren't even in a bed. …I felt the inexplicable need to make up for it, though it had been no fault of mine. I ignored her pleas, tugging until her gown slid over her hips and off those unbelievably long legs, leaving her in a simple pair of white, lace panties. I quite literally growled at the sight.

She giggled as I dove to her abdomen, laying kisses and soft nips over her stomach and slipping my fingers into the slender strips of fabric over her hips and sliding them over her legs. I breathed in deeply, already moving down between them, hungry for her and anxious to make her come again and again, but she caught my face in her slender fingers, stopping me. Through heavy-lidded eyes I looked up to her, her lightly tanned skin glowing in the candle-light, her eyes closed and her cheeks flushed. "….I want it to be… for both of us…"

I kissed each of her thighs in turn, watching her shiver in response. "…Honey. I want to make this last, for you…"

She shook her head. "It's our wedding night…"

I watched her for a long moment, and then moved up her body, rolling her gently onto her stomach. Her eyes opened and she lifted her head as I laid beside her, my head at her hips, and then reached over, pulling her until her knees rested above each of my shoulders. She moaned as I trailed kissed back up her thighs and then her hands were frantically tearing at my boxers, the one piece of clothing I'd left on, dragging them down my legs and freeing my erection from them.

I jerked involuntarily at the first touch of her tongue and her deep, throaty chuckle had me curling my toes in an effort to maintain control. Breathing heavily, doing everything in my power to respond to her gently despite my hips which were already arching towards her warm, inviting mouth, I buried my face in her apex, sliding my tongue from her clit to her opening and slipping it inside to taste her more thoroughly.

My hands moved from her waist down to her hips and over her perfect ass, squeezing as her mouth slowly took more of me and my lips moved to capture the throbbing little nub between them, sucking, kissing, and licking alternately, enjoying the ability to control her reactions—a groan when I bit, a shiver when I kissed, a whimpering kind of moan when my flat tongue dragged across her, her nails in my thighs when I sucked. When her mouth around me became too much or too distracting—when I worried I was getting close—I would simply drop my face to the ground again and slide two fingers inside her, delighting in the way she were freeze, her whole body tensing. I would slip from her mouth and pump into her while her forehead came to rest of my thigh and her hips moved in rhythm with me.

Finally, when I was certain I couldn't keep this up a moment longer, I used both my fingers and my mouth, with a little maneuvering, and when she arched herself against me, her hips searching and urging me faster and her breathless voice desperately moaning and begging me for release… which came almost as soon as the words left her mouth, her thighs clamping almost comically around my ears, her hands bunching up the comforter at my thighs, her whole body writhing above me.

…It took everything I had not to come, right then and there.

When she came down, I slipped from underneath her, turning my body around to draw her to my chest and hold her while her breathing steadied and the occasional aftershock rocked through her body. And when she let her eyes open to look at me, the depth of desire and love and fulfillment I found there told me I had waited long enough. I laid her back onto the blankets and slipped inside her with all the ease in the world—it was where I belonged, after all.

And finding myself inside her again… especially after joining our lives together, today… it was like coming home. I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as I was fully sheathed and began a slow, gentle rhythm that had her humming her moans under her breath while her feet moved up and down my calves, just as slowly.

Her second orgasm took me by surprise—I had known she was getting close by the change in her breathing and the sounds she was making, but sooner than I expected she had arched up against me, her whole body pushed up against me in a long, elegant curve, shuddering while she clamped and pumped around me. I laid soft kisses over her face, but did not stop my movements, knowing from experience that it could last quite a long time if I didn't stop.

When her body finally went limp beneath mine, her whole face red and her breathing ragged, I slid out of her, rolling her once again onto her stomach, lifting her hips, and replacing myself exactly where I was meant to be. The moan that accompanied this entrance told me that she hadn't fully come down—that although she was not still coming, she was far closer to release now than she had been when we started. If I wanted to come with her, this time, I needed to catch up…

I lowered myself onto her slowly, wrapping my arms around her in a bear hug, supporting my weight on my forearms crossed in front of her, and began thrusting into her again, my breath coming right against her ear, the smell of her hair filling me up and spurring me on. My thrusts were shallow in this position so I sped them up, to make certain that she was not lacking in pleasure and swallowed several times, so I could speak in her ear with each thrust.

"Oh, god, Sara… You feel so good… Sara… I love you, Sara… You're my whole wide world… I'm… so glad… I married you…. Oh, fuck, honey…. I want to die feeling just like this… I never want to not be this… connected…"

Once again, her climax, spurred on by my words, surprised me and instead of waiting it out, I thrust harder into her, wanting to join her, one arm slipping down her body and between her lips to keep her going. I had to work for it, after holding back for so long, but when it did come, it was… cataclysmic. The most mindless, earth-shattering, unbelievable thing I'd ever experienced, emptying myself into her, giving her everything, and feeling her muscles as they begged for more and more, her throaty wail of pleasure beneath me sending fire and ice racing each other down my spine.

It was several minutes before I could move, pulling from her… she was half-asleep already, thoroughly exhausted, struggling to wake up and help me. I shushed her, forcing myself to stand despite the weakness in my knees. I blew out the candles, slipping into my boxers, and cleaned up, carrying her into our bedroom and tucking her into bed before going back to make sure nothing had been left behind—her nightgown was on the couch where I'd tossed it, and several rose petals lingering under the coffee table. I put the champagne we'd never opened back in the fridge, the glasses in the cupboard, the chair outside the office back in the dining room…

And then curled back up in bed with my wife—_my wife_—and let the exhaustion take over.


	34. Chapter 34

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Sorry it's short... I wanted to do the girls coming home from Grissom's perspective, but this day from Sara's... and I have to go do my taxes before Uncle Sam gets mad at me. :) Luckily, I'm a poor college student so it shouldn't take too long... I'll update again tonight if I can... and if I don't end up updating Seredipity instead.

Enjoy!

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I slept in, Sunday morning, despite wanting to get up and have breakfast with Gil's mother and the team. He told me he wanted to let me sleep, calling his team instead and thanking them for coming. We had an early lunch with his mother and then took her to the airport, waiting to see her plane take off before heading home. Gil was silly, constantly picking up my hand and kissing it, just to see the ring's presence there. We went to get his sized that day—I had bought it too big—and were packing for our night in the honeymoon suite when I received a call.

Charla Thompson from social services was calling me, off the record, to let me know that they planned to transfer the girls into our care the next day. Since it was a school night and we had three girls to move, she figured it would help if we knew a little ahead of time so that we could prepare the house. I thanked her over and over for help and the advance warning, and turned to tell Gil the great news—he was already unpacking our bags.

I sighed, a little disappointed, but then… who really wanted a hotel room with a Jacuzzi tub and a vibrating bed or whatever secret, fantastical things that made the room so expensive, anyway? Besides, once we were in Vegas… there were at least four people I could think of who would be great babysitters and one who would be not so good—Greg had proven himself far too gullible—and one of those people sooo owed us.

We would have another chance. …Maybe in a year or so we'd even take a honeymoon. Right now, that wasn't really possible—we needed to figure everything out with the girls, and they needed stability more than anything. But someday…

I smiled softly to myself. We'd have all our kids graduating in six years. Gil would be closer to the right age at forty-five, but I would only be thirty. …Maybe we'd have a baby, in a few years. …Then again, we would have our hands pretty full as it was.

I took over unpacking, telling Gil to call the hotel and see if he could get any of his money back… and within the half hour, we were headed out to a furniture store. We needed three twin-sized beds… and if two could be made into bunk-beds, that would be ideal. It was a rather small office.

We looked for what felt like hours, holding hands as we went and talking about what we would look for in a house and how the girls might want to decorate and what they'd think of Vegas and… what rules we'd have to lay down, now that they were coming to live with us.

"Bedtime."

"Eight o'clock." I raised an eyebrow. He laughed. " Okay… how about… Nine thirty, they have to be in bed… lights out by ten."

I nodded my approval and then glanced at a set of bunk beds. "…Do you like the metal frames?" I wrinkled my nose up. He smiled at the expression.

"No, I like wooden. …Boys?"

I pursed my lips. "Never in their bedroom… leave by… eight thirty?"

He chuckled. "I was thinking 'No'."

I laughed. "They can have friends who are boys…"

He glanced at me out of the side of his eyes. "…Like you and I were friends, before your eighteenth birthday?"

My jaw dropped and he smirked. "...Make it eight."

He nodded, grinning. "…I suppose there's not enough storage for all their things, in that closet. …Eventually, they're all going to need their own closets and dressers… bedside tables, desks…"

I laughed. "Just wait until you're buying four different brands of feminine products when you go to the grocery store…" The look on his face was priceless—his eyes wide and his jaw dropped in absolute horror at the thought. I snickered. "Oh, don't worry so much… I'm sure one of our preferences will overlap…"

The look didn't fade until we were back on the much safer, much more masculine topic of furniture. We found wooden twin beds that could be disassembled into bunk beds or two separate beds, and ordered three of them, along with three mattresses and box springs. The earliest they could deliver them was Tuesday during the day… which was fine. The girls could sleep on the futon and the couch in the living room the first night, and Gil could put them together during the day, Tuesday.

We walked through the bedding sections, debating purchasing bed sets. We wanted them to have things ready, so they felt welcome… but we also wanted them to feel like they could personalize and make their own choices. …In the end, we settled for generic white sheets and solid-color comforters. Charla had assured me that they were doing everything they could to speed the process for our move—I was certain this was helped along by the fact that most of the people there knew me or knew someone who knew me—and once we had a house and they decided how they wanted to paint, they could pick out something unique for themselves.

We ended up buying plastic storage containers and closet organizers, hoping that it would serve until we could move… hoping that the girls would understand how limited the space was going to be for a while. …With any luck, they'd be adopted before school started and they could start seventh grade in Las Vegas.

With that hope in mind, Gil emailed the woman who had sold him his townhouse about putting it back on the market and about finding a house that could accommodate three preteens, a wife, and a dog comfortably. Hopefully she'd be able to send him pictures and we could narrow down our choices to just a few… We'd have to make a weekend trip, eventually, to look at them… but it would be easier to look at three to five rather than ten to twenty…

…I hadn't married Gil for his money, though I had known that he was more than financially secure, and that really, really helped when you were trying to do everything we were doing in so short a time.

It was late when we got home, having stopped to eat on the way back, and though tonight was supposed to be a night of romance… all I wanted to do was crawl into bed. And that was perhaps the nicest part… I mean, don't get me wrong… the three orgasms the night before had been fabulous…

There was just something so intimate about crawling into bed with my husband and slipping into sleep, my toes pressed up against his legs for warmth, while he read a forensics journal in the light of the television, turned on low to some sports show talking about the baseball games of the day… intimate and loving and perfect. And tomorrow, our girls were coming home.


	35. Chapter 35

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Sorry for the delay in updates. I'm caught up in my other story right now, but I'll try to be good since we're nearing the end. Thanks for the reviews!!

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I was nervous. …Trying to help Sara with Brady had been hard enough. …I didn't know what to do with three twelve year old girls in the house. Sara had the day off but didn't want to use more vacation time when she thought she could use it all at the end, before she quit and we moved… so she decided to go in anyway. Before she left for work, we put together a shopping list of things they might need… shampoos and conditioners, body washes and tooth brushes and toothpaste… deodorants and pads and tampons—I really wanted to have Sara get those, but we didn't have the time—hairbrushes and ponytails, contact solution for Alexis and acne cream for Kaitlin and OTC allergy medication for Jill. And that was the tip of the ice berg… this list went on for pages.

So I went to our friendly, local superstore, buying groceries for larger meals and kid-friendly snacks and all the toiletries Sara could list and I could imagine, and by the time I got home and had everything put away, Sara was home on her lunch break, telling me she'd gotten the call at work while I was at the store—we were officially the girls' foster parents. They would take the girls to their respective homes after school to pack their clothes and belongings… and they should be over in time for dinner.

When Sara went back to work, a brilliant smile firmly in place, I paced the condo and eventually ended up cleaning, simply because I needed to remain occupied. I was excited and nervous and anxious for them to be here already. …I didn't know, exactly, how everything was going to go… how they'd relate to me… if they'd ever call me 'Dad' or if I would be perpetually 'Griss,' even when they were all Grissom—or Sidle-Grissom—as well.

Never had I imagined that my whole world would hinge on the opinions of twelve year olds...

Sara was home before the girls arrived, coming in and changing before attempting to dive into cleaning… and finding nothing to do. …She actually glared at me, for having scrubbed the bathrooms. I promised her I would never do them again, but… that didn't seem to make her happy either. She was the one pacing this time while I tried to focus on the baseball commentators on the television. …Not that it wasn't a struggle to not jump up and pace right along with her.

When the knock on the door came, we both jumped and flung ourselves towards the door, me trying to slow my pulse with deep breaths and Sara manically smoothing and resmoothing her shirt over her pants. I caught her hand, and the smile she gave me made me fall in love with her all over again, and more deeply so. I reached out, pulling the door open, and in a moment Kaitlin had thrown herself in Sara's arms.

"I can't believe I'm really here!" She turned to me and with no hesitation threw herself into my arms too. I chuckled, wrapping her up in my arms and squeezing. …I was so happy. Her social worker smiled, shook both our hands, and passed us her things. We walked her through the house though it was a courtesy more than anything—we'd been approved to foster already—and then she squeezed Kait's shoulder and said goodbye. The door closed and Sara wrapped Kaitlin in her arms again, this time from behind, her arms crossing over her chest and her hands falling over her arms.

"…So… first one here…you get to choose your sleeping arrangements. …Until the beds come tomorrow afternoon, you have two choices—sharing the futon with one of the others, or sleeping on the couch."

She tilted her head. "…I'll take the couch."

A knock at the door came again, and again we were rushing over, all three of us this time. And once again, when the door opened, a twelve year girl threw herself into Sara's arms—Alexis. She then proceeded to hug Kaitlin and I and we once again did the tour with the other social worker, putting her bags into the office and apologizing for the lack of space for the time being. Before the other worker could even get out the door, another knock came and with it came Jill, giving hugs all around, tears in her eyes.

By the time everyone was settled and Sara asked what they wanted for supper, it was nearing eight o'clock. At eight thirty we sat around the dining table with plates of spaghetti. …And the variations between how the girls ate boggled my mind. …How on earth would I learn to keep this straight for every meal…? Jill didn't like the meat I'd put in the sauce, so Sara warmed her up a separate bowl of just sauce… and Jill proceeded to cover it with a thick layer of grated parmesan. Kaitlin ate without sauce or cheese or meat—just butter on her noodles, and Alexis seemed the most normal… sauce and a light layer of cheese… but then she had to stir the spaghetti on her plate, so that the sauce and cheese were distributed evenly.

…I was getting a headache, and this was the easy part.

After supper, Sara had them all take out homework and work on it while I cleaned up the kitchen and she helped them as needed. They didn't have much—they were all in summer school, and the homework was minimal. And then we gave them time to unpack… we showed them everything in the bathroom and they each picked a toothbrush—I was grateful I'd gotten three different colors, so they could keep them straight. We labeled their plastic storage containers, figured out what time they had to be to school in the morning… and by the time everything was unloaded, it was pushing ten. We sent them to bed and went to our own bedroom afterwards, exhausted from the day of anxiously awaiting and the night of hectically unpacking the lives of three girls into one small room and bathroom.

I don't know why, but I expected quiet… maybe I just wasn't thinking. But within ten minutes after the door to our bedroom had closed and we'd both curled up in bed, three sets of giggles could be heard coming from the office. Sara smiled, curling up to me. "…How much do you want to bet that, tomorrow morning, we find Kaitlin asleep in the office?"

I shook my head. "…Maybe we should get them all their own rooms… they'll get more sleep that way."

She hugged me. "No, they'll just have a longer commute before and after their late night talks. …_We_'ll get more sleep if they're in one room."

I chuckled, holding her tight to me, staring at the dark ceiling. For a while, we both laid awake in the quiet, listening to their soft voices and laughter… but within the hour, Sara was asleep. I was up longer, listening as their voices slowed and softened over time, finally dwindling away a little after midnight. Only then could I close my eyes and feel sleep creeping up on me. …I was certain my whole head would be gray within a year with these girls but… well, in the end, that wasn't so high a price to pay.


	36. Chapter 36

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: :) I felt like we needed some of the girls. For the record, I had half of this chapter written before psychic-Jellybean wrote her review this morning. -glares- :) Just sayin'.

Hope you guys enjoy! Reviews?

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I curled up on the futon with Alexis, wiggling my toes in slight uncertainty. I never slept well in a new place, and I wondered if Sara's house counted as a new place—I had never lived here before, but I'd slept here a few times just fine. We were quiet as we listened to the sounds of running water as Sara and Griss got ready for bed… and when it had been quiet for a little while, the door opened slowly and Kaitlin was there in her tank top and too-short-shorts, closing it behind her.

"…Can you believe this?"

Alexis grinned, scooting closer to me so Kaitlin could squish in on the end. I scooted too. "…They're really serious about it. They bought us beds… not like cheap beds they found at someone's rummage sale… real, nice, new beds."

"How do you know?" Alexis asked me.

"The paper they have form the furniture store was on the counter in the kitchen. …It was expensive."

Kailin maneuvered herself so her head was by our feet, lying on her side and bracing her head on her hand. "Well of course they're serious… the rings they gave us at the wedding were a bigger deal than beds…"

Alexis shook her head. "I don't know about that… It's easy to buy us each our birthstone and leave. …They both have good jobs, so money is like… not a big deal. …It's harder to go pick out furniture and think about how everything is all going to work without getting scared and running away screaming."

I nodded and Kaitlin rolled her eyes. We knew better than to get upset—she just didn't like to be wrong. "…Are you guys scared to move to Vegas?" I asked, in part because I was, and in part because I was excited—I really, really wanted to talk about Vegas.

Kaitlin shook her head, her eyes now fixed on her hand, admiring the birthstone ring there. "No. It's a desert… all they have is gambling, which kids our age can't do, and sand… We'll be the hot surfer girls from Cali." She grinned and though Alexis followed suit, looking like she liked that idea, it took everything in me not to snort in disbelief. I wondered, sometimes, if she really believed some of the things she said or if it was all a front.

"Yeah, but… what if we end up in school with some casino owner's kids…? Then we're not hot surfer girls, we're poor beach bums…"

Alexis smiled. "We're not poor anymore, Jilly. We've got parents."

Kaitlin giggled. "…Are you guys going to call Griss 'Dad'?"

My eyes widened at the thought. It hadn't occurred to me, but would he expect that? …If he didn't, didn't we owe it to him? I mean, Sara loved us, but Griss… he hardly knew us. …He was doing a lot for us by adopting us. …We definitely owed him.

Alexis shook her head. "No… that's too weird. Besides, unlike you guys, I know my dad…"

I frowned. I hated when she called him 'dad.' He was a step-dad, in prison, who hadn't cried at her mom's funeral. She didn't have a dad anymore than we did… or, at least, Griss was as much hers as he was ours.

Kaitlin giggled. "We're like Annie! We'll have to call him… Daddy Griss-bucks!"

I laughed. "That's just… creepy."

We were all giggling then, when a soft sound made us all freeze, holding our breath to stay quiet. When it didn't come again, Kaitlin whispered, "…I think it was someone in the hallway. It sounds like they went back to bed…"

"Maybe it was Hank." I suggested.

Alexis' eyes were wide and bright, a smile twisting her lips. "…Maybe it was the bed creaking…"

Our jaws dropped, which was the exact reaction Alexis wanted. She giggled and I picked up my pillow and hit her with it. "That's gross, Alex!"

Kaitlin, however, seemed to agree. "Well… They _are_ newlyweds. …Newlyweds do it all the time." She said, very matter of fact. I gave her my best disbelieving look.

"How would you know?"

"Cosmo." She replied flippantly. Neither Alex or I were sure whether she'd actually read a Cosmo or not… she claimed her foster mom got them, but we'd never been allowed over, so we couldn't be sure. …She liked to throw it out whenever we tried to call her on something.

Alexis smirked. "Well, whether they're doing it all the time or not, I think they're doing it now…"

"What? Why?!" I asked, horrified at the thought.

"Listen."

We sat very still, listening… and then we heard… heavy breathing. …Panting.

"Oh, ew!" Kaitlin whispered into the stillness, but… it sounded too close. And… strange.

I crawled out of bed, headed for the door.

"…Jill! What are you doing?!"

"Don't open the—"

I swung it open slowly, squinting in the darkness down the hallway towards their room… Hank was lying there, breathing heavily. Quietly, I gestured for him to come to me and he hurried over, tongue lolling out of his mouth, and into the room. I closed the door as quietly as I could.

"I told you it was Hank."

"Thank god!" said Kaitlin, while Alexis just giggled.

I climbed back into bed and Kait patted the bed until Hank jumped up to lay by our feet. She scratched his ears and I frowned.

"…You know… they're probably not doing it now, because it's our first night here, but… eventually, they're going to." They gave me duh looks, but I kept on. "No, I mean… not just eventually. …They're going to do it with us in the same house. …Chances are, we will hear it, eventually."

We all made faces, thinking about that… and then Alexis giggled. "…Do you think he's got hair on his butt?"

We all burst into laughter, causing Hank to open his eyes and give us a disapproving look, and then we were shushing each other in between our own laughter, knowing we'd be in trouble if we woke them up.

"Shh!"

"Shut up!"

"Seriously, guys, we're gonna get in trouble…"

Somehow, though, that just made us laugh harder. I was wiping tears from my eyes by the time we'd settled down and then… "Yes." Kaitlin said.

We both looked at her, confused for a moment… and then realized what she was saying 'yes' to…

We were burying our faces in the pillows, trying to keep our laughter quiet, and Hank jumped off the bed, curling up in the corner to sleep instead, which only made the problem worse. Eventually we got to sleep… but the morning was worse. I couldn't look Griss in the eye. …I kept seeing a big, gross, hairy man-butt framed by Sara's legs… It was so embarrassing.

Sara woke us up, knocking on the door and then opening it with a knowing smile, saying that if we all wanted to shower before school, we needed to get up. I usually showered at night, so I rolled over, but Kaitlin slid out of bed and hurried out. …I was asleep again when she came back, shaking Alexis' shoulder and waking her up, telling her it was her turn. I was suddenly glad I didn't shower in the mornings… the water would probably be cold by now.

I got up when I heard Alexis leave the room, dressing and doing my hair in the little mirror in the office and then taking my turn at the bathroom—deodorant, bathroom, brushing teeth—before I knew both Alex and Kait would take it over, doing their hair. …Ponytails were just so much easier than what they did every morning… I was pretty sure I'd be thirty before I cared about doing my hair in the morning. …And really, when you're that old, it doesn't matter anyway.

While they fought over the mirror, I went into the kitchen, keeping my eyes on the floor because Griss was there. He offered to make me a bowl of cereal, which was so nice I felt like hugging him again, but the image in my head as well as too many years in foster care had me shaking my head politely and making it myself. …Despite this, halfway through my bowl, he slid a plate with two pieces of toast over to me. …I sucked it up, met his eyes and gave him a smile and a thank you… and then turned away. Gross.

I was done eating when Kait and Alex came out and had cereal. Sara hurried out a minute later, pausing to ask us how we slept and if we were up late (her eyes a little too knowing), and if we needed anything before she left for work… and while she hugged each of us, kissing the top of our heads, I realized that I had slept well. …I never slept good in strange places.

The kiss she gave Griss before she left was gag-worthy, and enough to keep me avoiding his eyes for the whole car-ride to school. He dropped us off, and though I wanted to hug him (but not look at him), I refrained. We were at school and certain appearances needed to be kept up.

…As we walked into the building, it felt like… almost like when you have a really nice new shirt or a super cute haircut… you look at everyone you pass as if you expect them to be looking at you, noticing something different… your head held high with buoyant confidence. I wanted everyone to ask what was different about us… about me… but I knew I wouldn't volunteer the information anyway. Sara had told us how kids treated her when they found out about her mom killing her dad, and we were not eager to repeat her experience.

…Still, a girl in my math class told me she liked my shirt—it was a shirt I'd worn a hundred times before and never been complimented on—and another girl in the lunch line asked if I'd done something different, today… So I knew, even without telling people what it was, that I _was _different, now. I wasn't the girl whose dad beat her mom and then left her to die while her daughter slept upstairs. …I was… The girl who had a super pretty, super smart, super young mom, and a famous dad.

…I mean, nobody really knew who Griss was, but Sara liked to tease him, calling him 'The Famous Gil Grissom,' so I figured that people who liked bugs and dead bodies would know him.

…Either way, I liked the new me way better.


	37. Chapter 37

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: This is another one of those chapters where you might need some forewarning of excessive sweetness. :) Thanks for all the reviews. Hopefully we'll be wrapping everything up here soon. I'm enjoying drawing out the fluffiness, but it might be getting excessive... Hehe. :)

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I dropped the girls off at school, wanting very much to hug each of them and tell them to have a good day at school… but that felt like I was pushing it. Forcing the whole 'dad' thing. I wanted our relationship to develop naturally… I wanted be earn their trust and affection. So I contented myself with a 'Have fun!' as they piled out of the car, waving happily at me and then giggling as they moved into the school.

I went home, took Hank for a walk, took a shower… and by the time I was pulling a t-shirt over my head, there was a knock coming at the door. …The beds were here.

They were not nearly as complicated to put together as I imagined… but moving everything by myself proved to be difficult enough on its own. I moved the futon out of the office and into a corner of the living room, followed by Sara's desk, computer, file cabinet, and other miscellaneous office supplies. Then, I dragged the long boxes of one of the beds into the room that was now empty with the exception of the overflowing closets, and general littering around the floor of girl… things.

I didn't dare move anything, because I had no idea whose was whose. …Seriously, maybe it was better if they all had their own rooms…

I struggled for about ten minutes, and finally broke down and read the instructions… realizing that each bed came with a tall headboard and a short footboard. …And to make bunk-beds, the bottom bed had to be set up with the taller headboards on either end. I sighed, throwing down the paper and letting it fall Spanish-side-up while I went to track down another high headboard. After that, it was simple—I had one bed set up, tall frame on either side, and slid it into the corner without the window.

God, it was hot in here.

The next bed came easier—short footboards serving as top and bottom… and it was light enough that with a little creative maneuvering and a lot of ingenuity, I was able to attach it to the bottom. I wiped the sweat from my brow and headed back into the living room, thinking that I would need another shower when I was done with all of this, dragging the final bed into the room and going to work… and realizing, once it was assembled, that there was no good place for it.

With a groan of frustration, I moved about scooting the bunked beds within their corner, but so the head of the beds rested against the wall with the window, rather than one long side of them. Then, I moved the single bed to rest against the same wall, on the other side of the window. …I thought the effect was rather nice, and that it would be even nicer with a nightstand or a dresser underneath the window. …There had been an end table beside the futon, and though it looked like it fit better in a living room than a bedroom, once I'd moved it in between the beds, I thought it looked like it belonged there.

The room was starting to look like a children's bedroom rather than a office/spare room/disaster area. …Which made me feel good. If I had time, maybe I'd try to make it look even more so… but right now, I still had three box springs and three mattresses to move. …Maybe I could get Sara to make the beds on her lunch break. She was better at that kind of thing anyway and… I was exhausted just thinking about everything I had left.

I had just managed to get the second mattress in and on the bed when I heard her come in.

"Gil?"

"In here."

"…It's a disaster area out the-re…" I turned to look at her curiously—she was standing in the doorway, watching me, no clear cause apparent for why she'd paused over her words… I tilted my head.

"…Not how you imagined it?"

"No, it's… it's better. This looks like it was a lot of work." I frowned again. Something in her tone was not… talking about how much work she imagined it would be. She licked her lips and I almost laughed.

"You can't be serious."

"…They're at school…"

"Sara, I'm disgusting right now…"

She shook her head. "You look… delicious… right now."

I frowned. "…Is this a new fetish I'm not aware of? I smell bad."

She started moving over to me. "No… you just smell… masculine. …When's the next time we can count on them all be out of the house?"

"Tomorrow on your lunch break." She rolled her eyes and reached me, her hands falling on my chest, running up and down. I laughed incredulously. "At least let me jump in the shower quick…"

She shook her head. "… There's no time. …You know, I think I get your whole… disheveled thing, now."

I raised an eyebrow. "What?" She leaned up, pressing her lips to mine tightly and sliding her tongue across my lower lip.

"You know… you're always especially attracted when I'm… disheveled. My hair a mess, my clothes wrinkled…"

"Pleasantly fuckable." I provided, swallowing. How was it that she had me out of breath with desire just by the way her hands were sliding over my chest and shoulders?

She grinned. "Exactly. …Hot and sweaty and panting…."

She kissed me and dragged me into the bedroom, despite my protests but… really, I was more than happy to oblige. We were newlyweds, but I didn't think that was an excuse—I felt like I would still desire her every minute of every day for the next fifty years.

She freshened up while I made her a sandwich to eat on the drive back to work, and the languid, deep, sensual way she kissed me before she left… I knew that tonight I would feel like I'd never had the release, I would want her so badly. …Why hadn't we adopted three infants? Or, no… three seven years olds… They slept through the night, and they wouldn't know what they were hearing if they did wake up…

I shook my head, feeling exhausted but somehow re-energized. I managed to bring in the final box spring and mattress, make all three beds, and drag their plastic storage containers out of the closet to rest along the wall opposite the windows and the bed. Sara had a large, decorative mirror up on that wall… and by setting up their storage containers, it was almost like they each had a vanity in front of the mirror. They could keep their hairbrushes or… I don't know… make up things… on the top, and then now there was more room in the closet. I frowned, looking at the ugly, white, plastic containers, wishing they were real dressers for our girls…

And then went digging through the linen closet in the hallway, finally coming up with some rather bright yellow table cloth that looked like it hadn't been used in years. It wasn't old or expensive, so I figured she wouldn't be mad at me… I folded it and laid it over the top of their containers, so that it just covered the top and fell a little over either side. I stood back, looking around the room at my handiwork. …It wasn't what I wanted to give our girls, but for now… it was nice.

I set the futon up as a couch at the end of our bed, mostly because the only free space in the living room was being taken up by Sara's office things. It would be a tight squeeze, for a while. …She'd had two lamps, in the office, one standing and one resting on her desk. I left her the standing one and moved the desk lamp onto the end table between the beds, thinking that we'd need to get them an alarm clock, eventually.

I had time for yet another shower before I went to get the girls, and I was nervous, while I waited outside for them, thinking that the end table really didn't look right in a bedroom and the lamp wasn't very appropriate for a children's room and the table cloth thing was just cheesy and silly. I had been excited for them to see how hard I'd tried to make their room 'home,' despite the temporary nature of things while we waited on the adoption so we could move… but really, I was a silly old man who was out of touch with their age group.

I gripped the steering wheel, overcome with the urge to drive home quickly and undo it… I so wanted the girls to like me… I knew that they were so much closer with Sara, which I understood, but… I longed to have a relationship with each of them, personally… not just as Sara's husband.

They slid into the car, in the middle of an engaging conversation about whether Chad and Kate had actually kissed or not and whether they thought there'd been tongue involved. …Wow, that was alarming. Was I supposed to stop that kind of talk, or…?

"Hey Griss!"

"Hey! I told my teacher about you today!"

"Daddy Griss-bucks!"

…The last one was Kaitlin. I laughed, uncertainly, at the reference… and chose instead to ask about Jill's comment. "…What did you tell him? …Her?"

"Her." She provided. "She was talking about science because these dumb boys were saying that it was boring and useless… and she was talking about all the good science did—like the internet and predicting storms and DNA to catch criminals. And I said that… well, I mean, the kids at school don't really know about our parents, so… I just said 'my dad,' you know, to simplify, but…" She was blushing, and I smiled brightly. "Anyway, I said 'my dad' was a CSI and he did DNA and all of that."

I grinned and glanced at her in the rearview mirror. "That's very sweet, Jill. If… If you girls want to call me that… you can. I mean… you don't have to. I…" I sighed. Only four women in my life had ever left me tongue-tied—I was in the car with three of them and married to another. I was crazy. "What I'm trying to say is… it's up to you. I would… love to be… dad, but… I'll understand if… that's weird."

They were all smiling brightly, and I focused on driving, not liking how my face was burning. Sure, I could face serial killers in interrogation rooms with a stoic expression and taunting words… but put me with some twelve year olds and watch me stutter and turn bright red like a teenager on a first date.

It was with relief when we got home and I could get out of the car, even if I now wished I had not been so ambitious with the bedroom. …Maybe they'd be so excited to have real beds that they wouldn't notice how silly I'd been. I unlocked the door and they rushed in, kicking off shoes and dragging their backpacks into their bedroom. My stomach churned as they moved down the hall, and I tried to focus on concrete things. Close the door, turn the lock. Slide out of shoes, scratch Hank behind the ears. Move to kitchen, brace hands on counter.

They screamed. …I was pretty sure that was a good thing, and a grin slid across my face, but I wasn't certain… I waited. As a literal mob, they ran back out to me and threw themselves into a screaming-group-hug around me, thanking me for the beds. …I might have damaged my ear drums, but I was blinking back tears I was so happy.

"…When did Sara have time to set up that area in front of the mirror?" Alexis asked. They girls were grinning, watching me expectantly.

I hesitated… it seemed like they liked it. And if they were assuming it was Sara… well, maybe they would think it was weird that I'd touched their things. One of them, for sure, was using the top drawer for socks and underwear… Yeah, that would probably be weird. "Lunch break. She wanted it to look more like a home for you guys."

There was a chorus of Aww!'s and another round of rapid-fire hugs, and then they were literally running back into the room, shouting as they went about who got which bed… and I blinked rapidly again, surprised at how strongly I was reacting. …I had liked the girls, when I suggested we adopt them. …But I hadn't expected to find their happiness so… overwhelming.

I drew in a deep breath, focusing on finding an after-school snack, so I could keep control of myself. I would have opted for a bag of Doritos and three cokes, but Sara had talked about how important she thought it was for the girls to eat healthy… I dug out some granola bars and yogurt instead. …I wanted Sara to think I would be a good dad as much as I wanted the girls to see me as one. I had never felt so uncertain of my own adequacy… and never been so happy to find I could do something well.


	38. Chapter 38

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Only a few chapters left... my goal is to finish by my birthday (Wednesday). No real reason, but it seems as good a day as any, right? I figure we'll have the move to Vegas, a little bit of time in Vegas, and then some sort of prologue with them being a little older... So 2-4 chapters. :) Enjoy! Thanks for the reviews!

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The girls were sitting around the table doing their homework while Gil cooked when I got home. I raised a suspicious eyebrow, thinking this was a little too calm and functional for the girls I knew, but when I entered the room, they all threw down their pencils and came to hugs me en masse. I laughed, trying to hug them with my briefcase in hand and threw a surprised grin over their shoulders to Gil while he smiled indulgently.

"…What's all this for?"

"For our room."

"The vanity."

"The beds."

I grinned, "You're welcome. …What vanity?"

They frowned. "By the mirror!"

"With the yellow!"

"Come on!" They said, pulling me forward. I threw a curious glance back at Gil who seemed to be trying to tell me something, but within moments he was out of sight and I was moving into the room. …It was… amazing. I had seen the beds put together and in place… but not the lamp on their nightstand, or the beds made, or… They pushed me over to what they'd called their vanity. The large mirror I had in the room before now had their storage containers stacked in a row beneath it with a tablecloth I hadn't seen in years folded over them. They'd already set up their own areas—hairbrushes and makeup and tweezers—and they were beaming like I had told them Christmas was coming early.

I blinked several times, shaking my head. "Girls… I don't… I didn't…"

"Expect you to be so happy." Gil said, from the doorway, wiping his hands with a towel. He grinned at the girls instead. "Told you she had no idea how much you'd like it…"

They laughed and hugged me again. I threw him a curious look, but he just shrugged. He didn't need the credit—their happiness was enough. …Someday, though, I'd tell them.

…That first week was the toughest. Gil never showered until after he'd dropped the girls at school, so he never had to endure a cold shower. …For the rest of it, that wasn't the case. I started showering at night, right after Jill, so that Kait and Alex could have the morning… I wasn't sure what we were going to do once we were in Vegas and Gil was working again. For now though, it worked—the vanity area helped a lot. The mirror was wide enough that two of them could use it while one was in the bathroom.

We also had to lay down the law about bedtimes—after the first few nights of every night being a slumber party, they were dragging their feet in the mornings with bags under their eyes. We weren't sure what to threaten them with… phone privileges? Who did they call? Each other. No TV? It was summer and they were all in summer school all day… we felt like, at night, they should have some fun… Eventually, we just sat them down at dinner time and told them we were concerned and that we wanted to see a change.

It was gradual—Gil reported he'd still hear giggling after I'd fallen asleep, and I often woke to noises… I'd never been a heavy sleeper as it was—but two weeks in, it happened less often, and they looked more refreshed in the mornings.

There were lots of other things—the bathtub drain clogged by the end of their second week, and while I just wanted to buy some Drano, Gil insisted that that would ruin the pipes. Instead, he went to clean it out by hand and with a… Well, I really don't know what it's called, but when he pulled it up it looked like we'd had a rather large, rather hairy rat down the drain. It was disgusting… and I think Gil was alarmed. How many years had he never had to worry about long hair in drains?

They fought, too. I mean… that's normal, of course. And the first week it seemed like none of them let it go too far, probably because they weren't sure about the whole arrangement yet… they were being careful. By the second week, they were snapping at each other more often and even threw the occasional sarcastic remark at me. I would raise my eyebrows and they would immediately apologize but… I knew that wasn't going to last long either. By week three there was constant bickering—Kaitlin didn't want Alexis borrowing her clothes without asking anymore and Alexis said she hated how messy Jill was, and Jill said Kaitlin needed to stop acting like the damn boss all the time because she was not in charge.

It was exhausting, trying to mediate. Trying to tell Alexis to ask even if Kaitlin never did and telling Kaitlin that she needed to ask and be less bossy and telling Jill to let some things go because that was just who Kaitlin was and to try to confine her mess to areas that were just hers—her bed or her vanity or her drawer in the bathroom—and telling Alexis that she needed to learn to put up with a little clutter while they were sharing a room.

Every other day on my lunch break, I felt like I was mauling Gil, because we still weren't sure what the girls could sleep through and it made us nervous.

When we made something for dinner that one of the girls didn't like, Gil's first instinct was to say 'Too bad, you eat what you're given' and mine was to say 'Let's see if we can find you something else.' We'd both been brought up in strict homes with those eat-what-you're-given policies…but while Gil thought it built character and made him a better person, I remembered getting backhanded when I'd refused to eat a steak that wasn't cooked very well—seeing the blood had been a startling realization that meat was animals. It hadn't occurred to me, before that… and as my parents had spent more money than usual to buy the steaks for my dad's birthday… it was quite the affront that I had been unwilling to take a single bite once I realized.

The first time one of the girls smarted off to me, Gil sent her immediately to their room for the rest of the night… which I thought was harsh. Teenagers were mouthy… and to be fair, if she'd said it to me as a friend, I would have laughed… the boundaries were changing. We were all feeling out our new relationships… We told her she could come out after a few minutes and talked about it… and that helped. …We agreed that we were going to be honest with the girls and treat them as equals. We explained that we weren't sure how to transition into being parents either, and they cut us some slack.

Despite complaints that Jill was messy, by the end of the second week, every inch of the room was trashed with all three girls' possessions. So, I made a new rule—Saturday morning is cleaning time. They could sleep in until ten thirty if they wanted, have breakfast… but by eleven I wanted them all working on cleaning the room and the bathroom they shared, and taking all their things from the main rooms of the house—headbands in the kitchen and school books in the dining room and sweatshirts in the living room. I figured that much was fair—they were only expected to pick up their own items. Gil and I did everything else.

Not that we didn't have fun—on the weekends, after housecleaning, we would always go do something fun. There was a roller skating rink across town that we made the trip to, skating around and around with lights flashing and bad eighties music playing. I would sing all the songs, getting me funny looks from my husband and the girls alike. I expected Gil to fall on his face a time or two, thinking it had been some time since he'd been on roller skates, but apparently he was more graceful than I gave him credit for. …Other times we'd go to the beach, or a movie, or the aquarium on the pier. We went to the beach to watch fireworks on the Fourth of July and cooked hot dogs and marshmallows over a small fire Gil built us in the sand.

And a week or so into July, Gil brought up the idea of church.

"…I guess I didn't think you were really Catholic, anymore."

He frowned. "…I'm not, really. But… I'm an adult."

I tilted my head. "So… you can choose for yourself, but minors must be indoctrinated when they're young so when they are old enough to make the decision, they're already predisposed?"

He frowned again. "…That wasn't how I was going to word it, no."

I laughed. "…If it's important to you, Gil. But… I mean, we didn't get married in the Catholic church. Doesn't that mean we're not really married in their eyes? We had sex before marriage…"

We compromised—every other Sunday, Gil would tell them a Bible story and teach them the moral behind it… and the following Sunday, I would present an alternative—sometimes it was a different religion's interpretation, sometimes it was something that supported his story—like telling them about all the different cultures who had flood stories as part of their histories to complement Noah's Ark—and sometimes it was a scientific explanation for what had been deemed a miracle. We both made sure we told them that there was no way to know who was right… that we were giving them the information for them to decide.

When Gil would tell a story of a saint, however, I would stay close enough to listen. I had loved them since I was little… my mother had bought me a book of them, and my brother used to read them to me when we were hiding or when my dad took my mom to the hospital and left us alone. They were so… comforting… and hearing Gil retell them, from memory more than anything, was even more so. His voice was steady and even, deep and compelling, and begged me to trust. …I felt that he would have made a great priest, if he hadn't chosen science.

As his wife, I was thankful for that choice.

There were other things… arguments about how they used the toothpaste—squeezed or rolled, cap left off—and about replacing the toilet paper roll and letting someone know when something was almost out… but by the end of July, life was actually pretty smooth. We hadn't heard anything about the adoption, and so we figured we might as well make plans. We needed to enroll the girls for the next year and take them school shopping… Gil needed to put in for another leave of absence. He'd already flown home to get his car, more clothing, and his bugs—which I insisted he keep in the garage—but if we were going to be here for months, we thought maybe he should rent out the townhouse and look into working as a consultant at the Crime Lab here… maybe do some guest lectures at local high schools or at some of the many Universities in town.

I made one last call to Charla before we would make all the plans—thus far she'd been unable to tell me anything concrete, but I just wanted to make sure. If not, we'd make the arrangements, and even if the adoption went through, we'd at least spend a semester here and move over Christmas break. When I got ahold of her, however, everything changed in an instant. …She said she'd just found out that morning and had intended to call me on her lunch break… they'd rushed everything, so we could get moved before school started in the end of August—we were getting approved.

Thank goodness this was on a Friday and I could rush through my paperwork and hurry home… we had mountains to do before we could move, and only about a month to do it. ...We were moving to Vegas.


	39. Chapter 39

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Soo, it's not super short, but it's not super long either. ...My head is full of Seredipity. That's why I had to set a date to try to finish this by... I'm unmotivated when I have a new story to obsess over. :) But! I don't have any shows or anything tonight, so I'm hoping I'll have one-two chapters up tonight, and another tomorrow, during the day. ...If I don't get side tracked. Lol, I'm doing my best.

Enjoy!

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Thankfully, the girls were done with summer school this week… we called the school and arranged for them to take their final tests on Monday—we had worried that they wouldn't have enough time to study, but they assured us that the classes were easy. I think they were just excited about the move, but regardless, we arranged it and Sara and I spent the weekend quizzing them in turns for their different tests. I scheduled a flight for Monday evening and Sara's mom agreed to take Hank… I gave my bugs enough food to last them for the few days we'd be gone, and called my realtor about putting the townhouse on the market and finding us a new home that we could close on within the month.

She honestly laughed at me, in the kindest way one can do such a thing, and said she'd see what she could do.

I dropped the girls off on Monday morning with a "Good luck!" and hoped that we hadn't rushed them unnecessarily, before heading home to help Sara pack—she'd cashed in all her remaining vacation time, and given notice for four weeks from now…when it would run out. We loaded up stuff for a few days and packed the girls' bags, double checking that they had packed essentials—Sara checking for underwear and toiletries, me double-checking the papers verifying their identities as well as our fresh adoption papers. We'd just gotten them today—the ink was still wet. I wasn't sure if we'd need them, but it was the only way we could prove that these three children, none of whom shared either of our last names, were really ours.

We picked the girls up, dropped Hank off, grabbed some dinner, and headed to the airport. None of the girls had ever been on an airplane before and they sat across the aisle from us, yawning exaggeratedly because Sara had told them it would help with the ears popping… Eventually, she passed them gum, mostly to stop the incessant yawning. All of this before we'd ever taken off… I glanced around, thinking people would be upset at their antics… but I found understanding smiles and complete disinterest from most of the people around us.

I realized with some surprise that I'd always been the person giving the parent the understanding smile… never the parent concerned about how his children were behaving. Even though I'd thought of the girls as mine for months, each new 'parental experience' came with that familiar, affectionate twinge. I had hoped the girls would sleep, but they talked through the flight about some new show with guys who were 'sooo hot!' I had mentioned my concern to Sara, asking if they weren't a little young to be so concerned with the opposite sex, but she'd merely laughed and told me that it was normal… when they stopped obsessing over celebrities and started obsessing over real boys, then we could worry.

To be honest, I was dreading that.

When we landed, I guided them all through the airport as none of them had been to Vegas before, and we rented a car. Another long walk to a shuttle, which took us to a rental lot, where we loaded up the trunk and piled into the car, and finally we were driving. I was headed straight for the townhouse, despite the girls begging me to drive them down the strip so they could see everything… until Sara reached over and took my hand. "…It'd be a nice adventure, Gil." She said softly.

I sighed and took the next right, steering us toward the strip. …It couldn't hurt to just drive by it…

…It was at least an hour before we pulled into the driveway of the townhouse, the girls loud and excited and Sara's eyes sparkling. "…Is this where you lived, back then?"

I smiled and squeezed her hand. "It is… it won't be ours for long though. We'll sell this and the condo and buy something together…"

We piled out and I passed Sara the key so I could carry both of our bags. The girls took their own and as a group we moved to the door. Sara unlocked it and stepped in, turning the lights on, and the girls giggled and pushed past us, rushing through it to look at everything, exclaiming about my butterflies and flitting through the rooms. Sara was slower, but she did the same… taking in the details of the life I'd had when I couldn't have her, investigating my hermitage.

The girls camped out in the living room because my office had nothing like Sara's futon for them to sleep on, and Sara and I curled up in a bed that had been so lonely for so long… it gave me a deep, secret kind of thrill to pull her to me in that bed and know that she was mine.

We went out to breakfast the next morning because I had no food in my fridge, and then met my realtor at her office. The girls sat in the corner, on the floor, reading a magazine Sara had bought them in a moment of genius at the gas station this morning—Teen something or other—while Sara gave information about her condo and what her realtor thought we'd be able to list it at in order to get it to sell in the next month. Within the hour, we were following her from house to house, grateful we'd started narrowing down properties months ago.

The first was expensive, and rather small—three bedrooms, a cramped kitchen, but an expansive basement. Sara and I talked about remodeling the basement to accommodate three bedrooms or even making it a large single room they'd all share… but eventually decided it probably wasn't for us.

The second was the opposite—large and cheap, but not very nice. There were five bedrooms as well as a large basement and sprawling family rooms… but everything was outdated. Wood paneling on the walls, 70's green carpet, and appliances that looked like they'd been old when the carpeting had been installed.

The third was a four bedroom in which each room spacious, with nice… everything. Move-in ready. It was top of our list until she took us to one we'd ruled out because it didn't have near enough bedrooms—three. The third, apparently, was a "bonus" room on the top floor with its own bathroom, complete with laundry chute. The master bedroom and the second bedroom were on the next floor down, along with a bathroom and an open area that I thought would serve as a great double office for Sara and I… another floor down was a large living room, kitchen, dining room, half-bath, and garage access. It had a three-stall garage, which would mean that when the girls started driving there would be a place for their car… and until then, a place for my insects.

The girls saw the upstairs and when we talked about either putting up walls and giving them each their own bedrooms or just finding dividers of some kind… they got so excited, talking about how they would decorate their room and how fun it would be. What sold Sara, I think, was the garden tub in the master bathroom. Me, I liked how happy it made everyone else. …Well, and the expansive workshop out back (the owner had been an amateur carpenter) would be great for experiments. But really, my excitement came for the girls.

Sara was already talking about how the backyard was big enough to install a pool, since we didn't have an ocean, and asking the realtor about sailing on Lake Mead.

It didn't make Sara comfortable, but we put in an offer, contingent on the townhouse selling. If the condo didn't, we would be okay… as long as the townhouse sold.

The next day was spent cleaning the townhouse and making it presentable for showings… and talking about what we would do, in our new home, if they accepted our offer. On a whim, Sara took the girls to a home improvement store to pick up paint swatches so they could think about what they wanted to do, despite my warning that there was no reason, yet, to believe we'd get the house.

We flew back Wednesday morning and when Sara turned on her phone while we were leaving the airport, heading to the long-term parking, she had a message. She frowned and typed in her voicemail code while we all slid inside the already-hot, sticky car, and by the time I was paying the man at the booth, she had grabbed my forearm and squeezed it tightly, causing me to drop my change out the window.

I was briefly frustrated but decided to abandon it—a quarter, a dime, and a nickel—and turned to look at her in curiosity. "…Who was it?"

"Christine," She said, giving the name of my realtor. "They accepted!"

The car was full of screams again (would I ever get used to that?), and we stopped to pick up Hank before heading home… We had a lot of work to do.


	40. Chapter 40

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Alright, short but sweet. Epilogue will be up tomorrow. :) Yay!

Enjoy! (For those who've been asking for it, I put in a little smut, but it's not as... drawn out... as normal. :P)

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Moving was… an absolute mess. Let's just say that, because the amount of problems we incurred were far too numerous to list. Suffice it to say we spent a small fortune storing furniture until the condo sold, and then storing more furniture in Vegas while we crowded into the townhouse, waiting for it to sell, and then on movers to move us in a month after school had started for the girls, because there was no way I could do it alone, what with Gil working again and the girls in school all day.

It was nice though, to have time to myself during the days. Sometimes Gil would pull a double and call and tell me he'd pick up the girls on his way home… sometimes he'd have breakfast with us before he headed to bed and I worried about getting them to school. …I started to think I would need a very regular job if I was going to manage being transportation for when Gil was busy. Sure, right now all they had was school… but eventually there would be movies and school dances and extra-curriculars.

The day before our furniture was due to be delivered—the girls and I having slept on the floor while Gil was at work—I painted everything. After breakfast and dropping the girls at school, Gil had gone to sleep in our bedroom, and I headed up to the girls room first, toting several giant fans and opening the windows. Gil had hired, before we'd had to leave the townhouse, some people to come in and build half-foot dividers with curtain rods inside, so that the girls could have privacy in their shared spaces. There were three little areas, complete with a closet and window, big enough to accommodate the furniture we'd just purchased in addition to their beds—a dresser, a desk, a chair, a nightstand… and the rest of the space we would set up as a living room, with a TV and VCR.

They hadn't picked out curtains yet, but we'd decided on paint colors… a metallic, light blue for Jill, hot pink for Kaitlin, and a medium purple for Alexis. So I laid sheets down and went to work, managing to finish their rooms by mid-morning. I cleaned up and piled my used equipment in the sink, thinking that I could probably finish the downstairs before Gil ever woke up…

I jumped about a foot when he slid up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. "Oh god! You scared the hell outta me!"

He chuckled, low and sultry, in my ear. "I'm sorry, honey… Tell me you'll let me make it up to you…"

His palms pushed up my shirt slowly, skating over my stomach. "…Shouldn't you be sleeping, Dr. Grissom?" I asked, breathlessly, and he chuckled again.

"I don't like sleeping without my wife. …Come to bed with me." He nipped my earlobe, causing heat to shoot down my spine.

"…I'm covered in paint."

"The shower then…"

Well, the man could be persuasive.

Needless to say, I did not paint anything else—I woke up in time to shower, eat a very late lunch, and put everything away before I had to go pick the girls up. Gil had gone back to sleep and had been snoring heavily when I left, so I took the girls to pick out curtains and bedding alone, uncertain whether we would feel left out or relieved that I hadn't asked him to come. By the time we got home, pizza boxes were sitting on the empty kitchen counter, and he looked… satisfied. I grinned—I probably could have changed all their last names to 'Sidle' today and he'd still give me that goofy We-had-hot-shower-sex-today smile.

After dinner, the girls sat on the floor and worked on homework while Gil and I trekked up the stairs to put up their curtains—cream with multi-colored polka dots—as well as the blinds over each of their windows. …Working forensics made you very afraid of peeping toms. We loved the idea of our girls being on the third floor and far from the ground… but window coverings were still as essential as locks on doors.

Especially with Gil working nights. I never thought I would be that woman who needed a man at home to protect her… but the fact of that matter was that women were simply more of a target than men. His mere presence would make me feel like we were less likely to be attacked. He promised me, when I confessed this worry, that we'd get a security system installed.

He worked a double, so after dropping the girls at school again, I was left to direct all the movers where things ought to go, frowning all the while, wondering if Gil would like the choices I'd made. It was amazing how easily our possessions fit into the home—both Gil and I's office furniture fitting easily into the office space, my bedroom set into the spare room that would be good for his mother or mine or my brother, when they came to visit. I put the futon out in the shed outside, reminding myself to make Gil promise not to blow it up or get any blood—human or otherwise—on it.

The living room furniture was harder—we hadn't thrown anything out, thus far, but I ended up picking his furniture to go up in the girl's room because it was smaller, and by the time he made it home from work, the movers had gone. I heard the door and glanced at the clock, appraising how much time we had… and then hurried out to him. He was glancing around, smiling at the furniture while he slid out of his shoes, deposited his keys, and shrugged out of his jacket, all while Hank pranced around his feet.

He caught my eye, and I did not need to communicate my sudden need for him, nor the need to hurry—the girls got out of school in an hour.

I collided with him, kissing him fiercely, my fingers sliding into his hair and finding home there… we backed up to the stairs and I tripped, falling backwards. I tried to scramble up but his hands pushed my back down, already tugging on my jeans, sliding them down and off my ankles and wasting no time in burying his face between my thighs. It was sheer force of will—and no small amount of carpet burns—that led me to tug him away and mindlessly drag him up and up again, into our bedroom.

"God, I love you." He murmured against my ear while I struggled out of my shirt beneath him, his hands running up and down my thighs. I literally ripped the shirt over his head, thankful he'd worn a polo instead of a button down today, and then attacked his pants. When I couldn't seem to get the button, I growled, rolling him over onto his back and unfastening them roughly, pulling them and his boxers down his legs and licking my lips when his erection bobbed free.

When my lips first slid over him, he opened his mouth to protest… but a moan came from his parted lips instead, and I knew I had won. I pushed him to the brink and then dragged him back several times before he roughly pulled me up to him and slid inside me with no effort at all. I gasped and gripped him and he buried his face in my neck. It was fast and furious, the ending explosive… but the cuddling afterwards was every bit as slow and soft and relaxed as if we'd spent hours making love.

I chuckled. "…Are we going to only have sex during the day, and never on weekends, for the next six years?"

He laughed, watching me climb out of bed and back into my clothing because the girls would be getting out in five minutes and it was a fifteen minute drive. "No… eventually we'll know what they can sleep through. …We'll learn how to be quiet."

He stretched in bed, his hands behind his head and his feet crossed in the picture of contentment and relaxation, his bare chest enticing… I had to turn away from the sight. "Well… if you say so. I don't know how we'd have that conversation with them…" I said, thinking I would rather bite through my lip and nearly-suffocate myself with a pillow before having to do that.

He chuckled. "It'll work itself out… you'll see."

And it did. As cliche as it sounds... we really did live happily, albeit quietly, ever after.


	41. Epilogue

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Soo, after I finished this chapter, I got so excited that I couldn't wait to post it. :) Lol, so we'll call it an early birthday present. My birthday, not yours. :P So I think that means I should get extra long reviews, yes? Because ...I'm getting old now. :(

Anyway, I want to say thanks to gsrmania, whose last review gave me the idea to do the prologue this way. It makes me happy.

I hope everyone has enjoyed reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it--it feels so good to be able to have such a happy ending to the LoA storyline, because even with the happy ending on that one, it wasn't... like this. :) Thanks for all the wonderful reviews you've given me, they've meant the world to me. I'm just so glad I can interest so many people with my writing. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

* * *

I don't know when I started calling Sara 'Mom' and Griss 'Dad'. It seemed like Sara had been a big sister to me for as long as I'd known her, and when they adopted us, it was a natural progression to see her as mother. And Griss was older… acted like a dad… seemed like he wanted to be a dad. So that was natural too. It… slipped out, here and there, in the beginning—I would refer to them as my parents to kids at school, or say 'My mom thinks this…' and 'My dad says this…' I don't even remember the first moment I called them 'Mom' or 'Dad' to their faces. Like I said, it wasn't significant, because it was just so obvious.

On the other hand, I remember in far too much detail every time I overheard them having sex.

When I was twelve and we'd just moved to Vegas, I was torn between thinking that maybe they didn't and thinking they were really quiet. I mean, we never heard them, no matter how often we giggled to each other that we thought that's what they were doing. In fact, the first time wasn't even at night… it was in the middle of the freaking day.

Which answered my previous question—they were doing it, they just waited 'til we were at school. Well, I mean… I guess that's courteous.

It was a weekend though… Kait and Alex and I had walked over to the park to meet some friends in the neighborhood. Kait had seen some guy she liked, however, and changed her plans… and Alexis was nothing if not loyal. And… I was loyal too, but… not willing to listen to her high-pitched and utterly fake giggle for forty minutes straight while they both beat around the bush. So I headed home. I figured that Dad would be asleep, but Mom would probably read with me. …That was one of my favorite things. They both loved to read, so anytime I got sick of spending all my time with Kait and Alex, I could find one or both of them, and we would take turns reading aloud.

I slid in through the garage door and typed in the alarm code to make sure that Dad's friends wouldn't be over here in five minutes freaking out. They were kind of alarmists, if you know what I mean. I walked from room to room and figured that maybe Mom was taking a nap. I knew she didn't always sleep really well. So I changed my mind, thinking I'd head up to our room, excited at the thought of having it alone for once, and listen to the CD Greg had borrowed me.

Kaitlin said Greg wanted Mom, and Alexis said that he wanted anything with boobs, but Dad didn't see Greg as a threat… so neither did I. They were just mad that, after the wedding fiasco in which they'd tried to convince him to get us a drink, he didn't trust them anymore. But Greg and I, we got along. He was like the big brother I always wished I'd had.

I headed up the stairs and stopped… because it sounded like Mom was getting hurt. …I had a moment in which years of less than pleasant memories flashed back to me, and while I couldn't see Dad hitting anyone, ever… the sounds were unmistakable. I moved down their hallway, instead of heading further up to my room… and when I was close enough to hear clearly, it hit me like a punch in the face.

Oh, for _gross_!

And if the 'uh' noises Sara was making weren't enough… before I could make it back to the stairs to run for it, her voice came again, breathy and desperate, informing him she was 'close.' Now, at the time, I had no freaking idea what that meant. I mean, I understood that sex or S-E-X made people feel good… but I wasn't necessarily acquainted with the orgasm yet. I mean, I'd heard the word but… the meaning was vague, you know? Anyway, I was running to the stairs at this point, but again, not before I could hear my dad grind out in a voice I had never, ever heard him use, "Oh, fuck, honey… You feel so fucking good!"

My dad doesn't swear, as a rule… but apparently, balls deep in my mom, he turns into a sailor.

I hurried out of the house, intent upon finding Alexis and Kaitlin and sharing my horror story… but when I found them, they were still with others, and that wasn't something I would tell strangers. …By the time we'd separated from the group and were heading home for supper… the need to tell was not so pressing. I mean, could I really trust them to keep their mouths shut about it?

After everything they'd done for us, I figured they should be able to have sex in peace, especially if they only did it when we weren't home.

I didn't hear them again until I was fourteen… I was up late reading, because I'd just gotten this book called Harry Potter and I couldn't put it down, no matter how many tests I had the next morning (three… I remember), and then I heard them.

They were trying to be quiet. I mean, really, they were. I think, if I hadn't be so unfortunate to have a bed beside a vent, I probably wouldn't have heard them at all. …And while it was all kinds of creepy and I dropped the book immediately to bury my head under my pillow to block it out… years later, I think I can look back on it as not so bad. I mean… I think I have a healthy attitude, about sex, in part because my parents were freaking rabbits, apparently.

Let's me fair—I didn't know they were sex fiends until I was closer to sixteen. By that time, they must have thought they had a good idea what we could or couldn't sleep through… and if I'd been asleep, I probably wouldn't have woken up to it. But I was often up reading… and they got loud. I would pull out my Discman, put in a CD of Greg's, and blast it… and then I was able to push aside the heebie-jeebies. Still, it as creepy enough that I was always aware of it. I tried to rearrange my room so that the dresser was in front of the vent, but it didn't help.

If I went to bed early, I would sleep with headphones in, just to make sure I didn't wake up to anything… but to this day, I swear I heard them conceive Eva. Dad had been working almost constantly, and mom was worried he was burning out… she told him to take some time, go teach a seminar on the east coast… and the night before he left, they were freaking loud. …It had been weeks though, and that was a long time, for them. I put on my loudest CD and pushed it from my mind… but when a month after Dad came back, Mom said she was two months pregnant… I knew.

It was disgusting, really… but I think it helps that even though I call them Mom and Dad, they aren't my parents. I never had that period of time as a young child in which I was aware of sex and yet unable to see my parents as sexual beings. …I had always seen Sara as a sister… she'd always told us about her dates… and Griss had been a boyfriend. So it was easier, when they became Mom and Dad, to wrap my head around it.

I was even the one who suggested the name—kind of a combination of Laura and Evelyn, our grandmothers.

I never told Kait or Alex, or either of my parents that I spent years unintentionally listening to them get to know each other in the biblical sense... and there was a crazy, creepy part of myself that wondered, when I started having sex, if we sounded so god-awfully-disgusting as they had… but I was sure we didn't. Ugh.

So when Kaitlin commented on it, years and years later… I just had to laugh. …If I'd told them now, they'd never, ever believe me.

We were all back in Vegas for Eva's high school graduation and our parents had broken out the liquor after Eva had headed off to her graduation party—though they'd stayed up with us for a while, they'd gone to bed a little while ago, and it was just the three of us again. Kaitlin was a wife and mother of one and had designed her own line of designer handbags. Eva was the envy of all the girls at school when she had the newest handbag, a month before they were available in stores. Alexis was not married, despite her two children… the youngest by a long-term boyfriend. She was some executive at a music label… but I couldn't tell you exactly what she did. As far as I knew, she did not find nor sign the talent, nor did she plan their tours, manage the company, or influence the music industry at all…

But she had signed pictures of herself with just about every star I'd ever heard of up in her house, and she was happy, so… I figured it worked. She had never been overly concerned with the music itself.

And I… was working at the Las Vegas Crime Lab, following in my dad's footsteps, although it seemed like everyone and their dog wanted to do the same. When he'd retired early to stay home and take care of his mother—Grandma Grissom had come to live with them a few years after we'd graduated from high school—Catherine had stepped up to fill his shoes, and Nick had learned everything he could about bugs. …Catherine had retired now, too, and Nick was running dayshift… Warrick had gone to teaching at UNLV so he could have more regular hours with Tina and Greg was in my dad's old office, which still contained Miss Piggy and an assortment of mounted butterflies.

I mean, I would never admit it to my mom or dad, because they'd be horrified… he'd been like a brother growing up… but I was thirty five now, and he was only forty three. That was half the age difference between them! …Not that it mattered anyway. I mean, I'd known the man for years… worked under him for at least four years, now… and he didn't notice me. I mean, besides the random, off-handed comment about beauty or sex that would leave me reeling for days at a time…

Still, a girl can't help but dream.

Kaitlin had lifted her glass and we'd all toasted to Eva, feeling content just to be sitting together again after all the time apart. …You share a room with two girls for six years, and you get used to that constant closeness. "…I was waiting for them to tell us Mom was pregnant when Evey turned sixteen." She snickered, and Alexis laughed.

"Do you remember that first night, in San Francisco? …We were so certain they were doing it all the time."

Kaitlin snorted. "I can't believe we didn't hear them even once, all those years…"

I fought back my laughter, blowing it off as slight amusement at her words, and then made my excuses to head to bed.

"What? It's early!"

"I thought you worked nights!"

I laughed. "Exactly. I've been up all day when I should have been sleeping!"

They grumbled and teased me as I headed up the stairs to our old bedroom—it no longer looked the same, of course, but there was a guest bed up there now, and I had certainly had too much to drive home. Unlike the other two, I did not have a significant other to come pick me up…

Well, I mean, I could call Greg. He'd probably be at work… But for me, I knew, he'd make the trip.

I settled into the bed, closing my eyes. No, I was way too tired to call him. Besides, I would almost certainly say something I'd regret tonight, after all I'd had to drink… it was better if I just drifted to sleep.

My eyes fluttered open a moment later, when I realized that this bed was positioned right in front of the vent, where my other bed had resided for six years. …And there were some definitely squeaky springs, if not the loud exclamations I got used to as a teenager.

…For a moment I sat in pure bewilderment. I mean, my mom was only forty six, but my dad was… sixty two. I mean, that was impressive… and god, so freaking disgusting! …Didn't they ever stop or… get tired?! …I knew I was drunk because I burst out laughing at my own thoughts before grabbing the spare pillow and slamming it down over my head.

…Maybe I would call Greg after all. …Nothing I could say would be worse than having to listen to this again.


End file.
